Study Completion Times

Improved study completion times represents one of the most critical areas for clinical development organizations. Previous TTC research has demonstrated that paying sites more on a cost per patient basis does not improve study completions times.

Other variables, such as study and protocol design, or whether a CRO or sponsor directly runs the fieldwork may be important. According to http://clinicaltrials.gov, TTC subscribers conduct over 76% of all commercial trials around the world. A detailed analysis of study completion results for over 2,500 Phase III studies demonstrates that whether a CRO or sponsor company runs the study has no bearing on study completion times. It might be hypothesized that CRO-run studies would be slightly slower to complete because of the added information step between sponsor company and CRO embedded in outsourced studies from study start to study completion.

Still, study design factors such as the number of countries in a study, had clear affects on completion times. There is, however, no difference whether a CRO or sponsor company manages the study. —TTC (for more information, contact [email protected] ).