Clinical Research: Phase 1 - Phase 4

Applied Clinical Trials – Complex, Puzzling, Ill-Defined: Challenges in Assessing PTSD

A recurring challenge in assessing and treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD is the inherently complex, ill-defined, and sometimes downright puzzling nature of its symptoms. The condition has had many names over the years. Among them: shell shock, combat exhaustion, irritable heart, and even nostalgia. The affliction, now widely know as post-traumatic stress disorder, was...

Clinical Research: Phase 1 - Phase 4

Applied Clinical Trials – Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials: Obstacles and Opportunities

Dementia is a global epidemic, affecting nearly 50 million people worldwide. By 2050, it’s estimated that 115 million people will suffer from some form of dementia. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common type of dementia occurring late in life. AD is also the only condition among the leading causes of death that cannot currently be...

Clinical Research: Phase 1 - Phase 4

Making the Case for Long-acting Antipsychotic Treatment

Medical science is making significant advances in treating schizophrenia, but for all the progress we’ve seen, patients don’t benefit much unless they regularly take their medications. Second-generation (or atypical) long-acting injectable antipsychotic treatments (LATs) that ensure consistent administration of medication have become widely available over the past 15 years, but they remain a tough sell...

Quality

Operational Challenges of Neuroscience Clinical Trials, Part 4: Assessment Subjectivity

In this blog series, we’ve been discussing some of the challenges of conducting clinical trials in neuroscience. In our final post of the series, we turn to another major one: ensuring that assessments are conducted with high quality whilst also minimizing subjectivity. Rating subjectivity can make signal detection substantially more difficult, if not impossible. This...

Clinical Research: Phase 1 - Phase 4

Operational Challenges of Neuroscience Clinical Trials, Part 3: Patient Recruitment

Last week, we discussed the high placebo response that plagues neuroscience clinical trials. Today we turn to another common challenge: patient recruitment. We’ll take a look at three strategies that can be used to improve trial participation: the use of several patient sources when recruiting a focus on patient-centric solutions the use of patient recruitment...

Clinical Research: Phase 1 - Phase 4

Operational Challenges of Neuroscience Clinical Trials, Part 2: High Placebo Responses   

Neuroscience clinical trials, especially those for psychiatry and analgesia indications, have always had to deal with the challenge of high placebo response. Most troubling is that the placebo response rate seems to be on the rise, at least in the U.S.   Bigger placebo responses make it harder to show that an experimental treatment is...

Clinical Research: Phase 1 - Phase 4

Operational Challenges of Neuroscience Clinical Trials, Part 1: Overview

With billions of neurons, the brain is the most complex organ in the body, so it’s not surprising that neuroscience clinical trials—more so than trials in other medical specialties—face major challenges, both conceptual and practical. In this new blog series, we’ll look at the challenges sponsors face when operationalizing clinical trials and share lessons from...

Medical and Regulatory Affairs

The Ongoing Quest for Evidence on the Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabis-Derived Products

Inadequate funding and burdensome regulatory barriers in the United States are two challenges that must be tackled if clinical researchers are to answer important public health questions about the pros and cons of cannabis and cannabinoid use, one of the world’s leading scientific bodies has concluded. These are among nearly 100 conclusions and recommendations reached...

Medical and Regulatory Affairs

State of the Nation: Cannabis-Based Therapies

On June 25, 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Epidiolex (cannabidiol, or CBD) oral solution for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare and severe forms of epilepsy, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. In addition to ushering in the first-ever approved drug for Dravet syndrome, the greenlighting of Epidiolex marks the...

STARR 911: Understanding & Implementing the New Guidance at Your Site

Premier Research recently contributed to the STARR 911 initiative, a project of the STARR Coalition to provide actionable guidance for clinical researchers after identifying volunteers with suicidal leanings. This post provides more information on the process itself, which was presented earlier this year at the 2018 ASCP Annual Meeting in Miami. Background The primary goal...