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Clinical Research: Phase 1 - Phase 4

Considerations When Operationalizing Trials for Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Treating the chronic pain experienced by patients with osteoarthritis is among the most enduring challenges in analgesic drug development. Operationalizing trials for osteoarthritis of the knee requires careful consideration of study design, strategies for mitigating placebo response, and site selection. Osteoarthritis, sometimes called degenerative joint disease or degenerative arthritis, occurs when the protective cartilage on...

Six Things You Need to Know About Medical Devices and Cybersecurity

Concern over cybersecurity touches our lives in new ways almost daily. Today, there is growing concern over millions of people who use connected medical devices that use off-the-shelf software. Here are six things the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health wants you to know about the safety of networked medical devices: 1. Hacking of...

Sponsors and CROs get More Clarity on Precision, Targeted Therapy Trials

Clinical trial sponsors and the clinical research organizations (CROs) supporting them have more clarity from the U.S. Federal Food & Drug Administration (FDA) on how to better select trial participants and design precision-based clinical trials for targeted therapies. New direction is contained in two new agency draft guidance documents recently published by the agency. They...

6 Reasons Why Early Oncology Drug Trials Fail (And How to Avoid Them)

Unfortunately, not all oncology trials succeed. In fact, the phase success and likelihood of approval (LOA) rates for oncology are the lowest across major therapeutic areas. Although there are many reasons for these relatively poor success rates, issues determining dose, schedule, and regimen in early phase trials are among the most prominent. Why and Where...

5 Operational Considerations for Rare Disease Trials

From researchers to sponsors to patients to advocacy groups to clinicians, rare disease research is full of passionate, driven, and determined people. As the greatest asset to the field, all people involved must be utilized to their greatest potential for a study to be successful. That’s why significant attention must be paid to the operational challenges within...

Heart Valve Studies: 6 key players required for success

As market demand for AVR (transcatheter aortic valve replacement) and TMVR (transcatheter mitral valve replacement) has exploded, companies face increasing pressure to rapidly deliver actionable clinical trial data. The key to success lies in the team. And the foundation of an effective team begins by understanding each role—and, where applicable, how to best select each...

Optimizing Regulatory Considerations for Orphan-Drug Development on a Global Scale

Rare disease and orphan drug research has a long history of serious challenges, thanks to both intrinsic factors—fewer patients means less available data; less available data means a less complete picture—and market forces—it’s more difficult to find investors when a smaller pool of patients may mean a more uncertain potential return on investment. Luckily, recent changes...

The 3 Ds of a Successful Strategic Sponsor-CRO Partnership

Want to know how to build strong strategic sponsor-CRO partnerships? Commit to the three Ds: Start with a dialogue that establishes the project’s direction, ultimately making a difference in the relationship. In these relationships, a CRO must bring to the table the supplemental expertise a sponsor doesn’t know they don’t have, but needs for success. 1. Foster a Dialogue Bidirectional communication is probably the...

The Placebo Problem, Part 15: Ethical Considerations

This is the fifteenth and final installment of our look at the increasingly high placebo response that is plaguing clinical trials in analgesia and psychiatry. Read the rest of the posts in the series here. As our Placebo Problem series draws to a close, we conclude by taking a brief look at three ethical issues...

Six Dosing and Safety Considerations in the Era of Emerging Therapies

Sponsors of emerging hematologic therapies – including gene transfer and gene editing, adoptive cellular, and antibody-drug conjugates – face a unique set of challenges in conducting early-phase, dose-finding studies. Key considerations for developing early-phase trials that can more accurately define the recommended dose and identify adverse events for emerging therapies include: Using dose-finding trial designs...