Women today can choose from a wide range of effective and safe contraceptives based on their medical and lifestyle needs. Over the course of their lives, women may change contraceptive methods for a variety of reasons, such as concerns about side effects. For researchers, the objective of contraceptive development is to design products that offer…
To develop a successful gene therapy, sponsors must conduct research studies that balance the need for safety oversight and robust clinical evidence with the challenges of finding the right patients, pairing them with qualified sites, providing informed consent, and confirming they are capable of — and committed to — fulfilling all protocol requirements. In…
The EU has been working to strengthen its regulations for better patient protection and more effective implementation of the rules for in vitro diagnostic medical devices. As a result, in May 2017, a five-year in vitro diagnostic regulation (IVDR) transition plan went into effect. While some of the dates have been extended1 to allow for…
The In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR) has fundamentally changed how in vitro diagnostics (IVD) are regulated in the EU. As a result, scrutiny for review and documentation has increased substantially, including a dramatic increase in required reviews by notified bodies (NB). For IVD companies, the challenge of adapting to a significant set of regulatory updates…
At its core, the success of any clinical trial rests on clean, conclusive data. This creates challenges. Throughout a trial, the data must be properly aggregated, scrubbed, analyzed, acted on—and all those steps must be recorded, to assure regulatory authorities of their accuracy. As the industry continues to evolve, new solutions to these challenges have…
The promise of gene therapy is to provide transformative treatments that meaningfully improve quality of life for patients, many of whom are currently living with debilitating diseases. To bring these treatments to market, sponsors are tasked with conducting clinical trials that generate robust evidence with appropriate safety oversight. In addition, gene therapy trials are faced…
Prostate cancer (PC) is one of the most commonly diagnosed cancers overall and the most frequently diagnosed cancer in men. The 2018 global estimate of new PC cases exceeded 1.2 million, and more than 350,000 men died from the disease worldwide.1 Over the last decade the emergence of new treatments, combined with better use of…
Molecular diagnostics can provide a more precise and scientifically sound basis for the practice of medicine. However, barriers to their adoption may increase the risk for developers and delay the practice of precision medicine. With the recent evolution of regulations governing investigational diagnostics, it has become vitally important for diagnostics developers to understand how to…
Healthcare payers, regulators, and physicians focus on clinical utility when evaluating molecular diagnostics tests. Clinical validation — establishing that the test can make a diagnosis or predict clinical outcomes — may not be enough to garner acceptance. This point is crucial, because failure to gain acceptance deprives patients of much-needed health benefits and results in…
Advanced ovarian and endometrial carcinomas present the greatest challenge in treating gynecologic cancer and, among the five types of female cancers, are responsible for the most U.S. deaths annually.1 With a combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation; patients can go into remission, but the majority will have a recurrence after several months or years. There…
