Quality

Medical and Regulatory Affairs

FDA Releases Draft Guidance for Transdermal Product Development

Transdermal and topical delivery systems (TDS) are important dosage forms that allow delivery of a drug to local tissue or provide systemic delivery through the skin. These drug products provide a number of advantages for patients, but can be challenging to develop. In November 2019, the FDA issued a draft guidance entitled Transdermal and Topical...

Data Management & Biostatistics

Establishing Risk-Based Monitoring within a Quality-Based System as ‘Best Practice’ for Clinical Studies

Risk-Based Monitoring (RBM) makes an impact. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires that clinical trial sponsors “provide oversight to ensure adequate protection of the rights, welfare, and safety of human subjects and the quality of the data submitted to FDA.” [US FDA 2019] This has traditionally been accomplished through onsite monitoring visits and...

Data Management & Biostatistics

Risk-Based Quality Management (RBQM) – A Collaborative Approach to Holistic Clinical Trial Oversight

Developing, executing, and overseeing clinical trials is a complex process. Gaining reliable evidence from clinical trials is essential for appropriate decision-making activities regarding trial participants’ safety and the reliability of trial results.  As clinical trials have become more complex, the clinical trial process has faced significant operational challenges. As a result, sponsors must identify proactive...

Quality

Planning for Quality in Medical Device Clinical Trials

Risk-based monitoring is a comprehensive approach to clinical trial monitoring that focuses on proactively identifying and addressing risks to patient safety and data quality. Effectively navigating the shift from traditional on-site monitoring to risk-based monitoring requires cross-functional collaboration and careful planning. Risk-based monitoring is a comprehensive approach to clinical trial monitoring that focuses on proactively...

Consulting

Decoding the Distinction: DMCs, CECs, and Their Role in Medical Device Research

Data monitoring committees and clinical endpoint committees can provide independent, expert review of study data and opinions to standardize outcomes and optimize data quality to help sponsors meet complex trial monitoring requirements. As global, multi-center medical device studies become increasingly common, trial monitoring is growing more complex. Regulators require that sponsors perform site monitoring to...

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...

Data Management & Biostatistics

Discover the Vital Intersection Where Data Ops Meets Quality Assurance at SCDM

Join us at SCDM 2018 for a session chaired by Sara Doolittle, Associate Director of Data Operations While quality assurance and data operations are generally considered separate entities in clinical drug research, in theory and in practice they are intertwined at multiple levels involving numerous stakeholders. Sara Doolittle, Premier Research’s Associate Director of Data Operations,...

Data Management & Biostatistics

Demystifying the Differences Between DMCs and CECs

In a clinical trial landscape where global, multi-center studies have become increasingly common, trial monitoring has become more complex. Regulations require that sponsors of medical device studies perform site monitoring to ensure that investigators are compliant with federal regulations, sponsor agreements, the investigational plan and the requirements set forth in the Investigational Review Board (IRB)...

Data Management & Biostatistics

ICH GCP Update: Sponsor Control of Clinical Trial Data

Under the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) Guideline for Good Clinical Practice (GCP), sponsors have extensive responsibilities for ensuring not only the ethical and scientific quality of clinical trials, but also the protection of study participants and the integrity of clinical trial data. The recent update of...

Medical and Regulatory Affairs

ICH GCP E6 (R2): A Primer for Small Biotech and Specialty Pharma Companies

Recent updates to the ICH Good Clinical Practice guidelines call for implementation of improved and more efficient approaches to clinical trial design, conduct, oversight, recording, and reporting that are intended to increase clinical trial quality and efficiency while continuing to ensure human subject protection and data integrity. Now, biotech and specialty pharma innovators face even...