Patient enrollment and retention for investigational trials are notoriously difficult. How is enrollment affected when there is no direct benefit to the patient: no breakthrough study drug with the potential to cure, no added caregiver time, no meaningful compensation for participating? Observational studies, by design, demand a continuation of the same standard of care a…
Oncology clinical trial activity in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region has been robust over the past decade, increasing 138 percent from 2010 to 2020.1 In the past, most studies conducted in APAC countries were later studies, but there has recently been an uptick in the number of phase 1 trials. This bustling activity, in combination with…
The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region now ranks first in the world for total number of active oncology clinical trials, with China alone accounting for more than half of those studies.1 To take advantage of the potential benefits of conducting clinical research in APAC countries, sponsors need to understand the nuances of designing and operationalizing studies in…
Accelerated by increasing acceptance of decentralized medicine ushered in by the pandemic, the digital therapeutics (DTx) market is rising exponentially. In January 2022, a Research And Markets analysis valued the 2021 global market for DTx at $3.35 billion and estimated it would reach $12.1 Billion by 2026.1 In March 2022, Insider Intelligence revised its previous…
Each year, nearly 85 million Americans see a physician for at least one skin disease, with $75 billion in direct costs to the U.S. healthcare system.1 While the FDA has approved more than 110 dermatology drugs, these treatments address only about 30 indications, leaving the vast majority of known skin conditions unaddressed. In recent years,…
Typically, when people talk about a full-service contract research organization (CRO) they mean a group that handles every aspect of a clinical study, supplying the personnel, the systems, and the processes. The sponsor is spared all operational involvement with the full-service model, simply receiving key information at specified intervals. This model works very well for…
Natural history studies play a crucial role in rare disease drug development, providing insights that advance discovery and shape clinical trial design. The benefits of these studies also extend to understanding patient journeys, clarifying the standard of care, identifying disease-specific centers of excellence, and surfacing opportunities to improve patient care. In this blog post, we…
Successful drug development requires a deep understanding of the disease of interest—its etiology, epidemiology, presentation, manifestations, and progression. In rare diseases, however, much of this information may be unknown. Patient populations are small and historical data are collected inconsistently and dispersed across treating physicians practicing in diverse geographies. Patient registries and natural history studies are…
Industry wide, the past two years have seen rapid changes in the approach to clinical data management. To some extent, this is the natural result of working through a pandemic, where remote collaboration and efficiency are at a premium. Yet the seeds of change were planted far earlier, with artificial intelligence, data visualization, and other…
Gene therapy clinical trials are logistically complex studies that require highly qualified sites and engaged patients for success. The ability to select the right sites and patients can be the difference between product failure and market approval. In this final part of a three-part blog series on gene therapy development, we provide tips on operationalizing…
