Building a Clinical Research Program with Chad Eriksen
Below is an excerpt of the full interview conducted with Chad Eriksen. Download the PDF now for the full article.
What are the more suitable clinical specialties for the formation of a platform research division and what are less suitable specialties, and why?
There really isn’t a bad clinical research specialty. Some require more strategic and creative thinking to make them work. Others require more money, staff, resources, etc. However, if you have a well-developed program with the right team on board, the sky’s the limit regardless of therapeutic indication. If an organization dedicates themselves to focusing on the fundamentals, they will undoubtedly find success.
With that being said, there are specific areas which are currently expanding their R&D efforts at a faster rate:
• Gastroenterology is a particularly hot area for clinical research right now. Specifically, IBD clinical trials have flooded the market. Pharmaceutical companies are desperately looking for new clinicians and patient populations to help fulfill their enrollment goals for these IBD trials. In addition to IBD, with Hepatitis C essentially being cured, the next frontier for liver disease is NASH, as there is currently nothing approved on the market to address this disease.
• Neurology is a great area worth exploring as there are a multitude of companies working towards addressing the issues associated with the aging population including Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia, Stroke and Sleep Disorders. Another area of focus in Neurology is on addressing the
ongoing opioid epidemic. As such, we’re seeing an increase in the number of opioid-free pain management trials.
• Psychiatry, Depression, Dementia, Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder are the more
common psychiatry-based clinical trials being seen right now. Additionally, many of these trials have a strong Neurology
component (and vice versa) so the potential for collaboration between a Neurology and Psychiatry clinic is a strong possibility and further opportunity for growth.
• Dermatology is a great therapeutic area for clinical trials, although it does tend to be a fairly competitive area. However, there are currently a myriad of atopic dermatitis trials available, which makes this an area worth pursuing. These atopic dermatitis protocols can vary widely, thus a
clinic would be able to run several AD trials in tandem.
Areas that tend to be more difficult to break into include more common ailments such as hypertension, diabetes, flu, vaccines, etc. Trials for these areas are not as prevalent as they once were because improved medications are now available to manage these conditions. When these trials do become available, they are extremely competitive because they tend to be less complex to operate – fewer visits, easier inclusion/exclusion criteria, more subjects to enroll, etc. Every site wants this type of trial.
The trend in clinical research tends to follow the same trend in medicine, where more specific diseases are now being targeted. As a result, specialists are required to handle these types of trials as they’ll have the patient population to meet enrollment goals and experience in these very specific disease areas to be able to
properly implement the protocol requirements
Platforms of all shapes and sizes can have a successful research program.
I have worked with single physician practices who have developed very successful research programs by investing in the appropriate resources, developing efficient processes and fully understanding the requirements of running clinical trials. However, I have also seen very large, multi-provider organizations lose a tremendous amount of money because they didn’t take the time to develop a sustainable clinical research infrastructure from the beginning.
