How CROs Can Build Trust and Alignment with Pharma Partners

In a recent video interview with Applied Clinical Trials, Judith Ng-Cashin, MD, chief medical officer, Novotech discussed the company’s recent accomplishment of winning the Citeline CRO Partnership of the Year Award in recognition of its partnership with Tune Therapeutics. Ng-Cashin highlighted the importance of seamless, trusting relationships in clinical research, as well as the roles of cost efficiency, risk-based approaches, and leveraging CRO expertise to navigate partnerships in the evolving regulatory landscape.

ACT: What are some best practices that CROs should focus on for creating strong partnerships with pharma?

Ng-Cashin: I think that what we can do on the CRO side is not make assumptions and ask. We might think that the study priority, the corporate strategy, strategic priority is one thing, but if we're wrong, then that sets us off on the wrong foot. I think on the sponsor side, sometimes we think the CRO knows something they don't know. Then we’re upset, surprised that something was missed or something didn't go well. It sounds very trite to say it's about communication, but it is about communication, and really pushing—from the CRO perspective—your sponsor colleagues. What's important? What are you concerned about? What are the top three risks you see coming up in this next phase of the study? How can we engage to look at that proactively and put a plan in place. It's about planning. It's about anticipating. But on the CRO side, we can't know what we don't know. We can't anticipate all the time what we need to know, so that's really where driving those conversations, driving the communication, and it's my experience on the CRO side, that the more you ask, the more you understand not just the tactics and the operations of what's going on, but what's the strategy, what are the priorities. Then you're driving that partnership relationship, and I think it needs to be done at all functions. I happen to be a physician, and I'm the chief medical officer here at Novotech, and I feel very strongly that that physician-to-physician communication, bond, relationship is critical to the success of a study, because “birds of a feather flock together,” driving those functional partnerships, I think is another way to drive those partnerships.