Sponsors Show Major Improvement in Investigative Site Relationships

In a recent CenterWatch survey, investigative sites rated sponsor companies on more than 36 individual relationship attributes.  The top five highest-rated large sponsors-those with 2013 total revenue from drug sales greater than $11 billion-were Novo Nordisk, Takeda, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca and Janssen.  The top five mid-sized and small sponsors-with 2013 total revenue from drug sales less than $11 billion-were Servier, Celgene, Biogen Idec, Otsuka and Forest Laboratories (acquired by Actavis last year). This survey also marks one of the few times in almost 20 years that strong improvement was observed in sponsors narrowing their performance gaps across attributes that sites rate as most important in defining relationship effectiveness. 

Relationship attributes that sites rate as most important in defining relationship effectiveness include quality of monitors, study support and easily accessible staff to resolve problems.With the current industry-wide focus on patient centric clinical trials, sponsors have  invested more time and resources in their investigative site relationships with the ultimate goal to better engage and enhance study volunteer participation experiences.  To achieve this goal, sponsors have implemented a number of initiatives to reduce protocol complexity and improve study feasibility, efficiency and convenience.

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