Statewide Partnership Aims To Boost Efficiency of Clinical Trials
Several health centers and medical research facilities across California are teaming up on an initiative to increase the efficiency of clinical trials, the San Francisco Business Times' "BiotechSF" reports.
Details of Initiative
The Partnership to Accelerate Clinical Trials, or PACT, initiative is aimed at helping drug developers manage multiple clinical trials at once.
Currently, clinical trial sites must reach separate agreements with drug developers and an unrelated institutional review board.
Una Ryan, chair of the Bay Area BioEconomy Initiative, said the process can be costly and can delay the release of new medications.
To streamline that process, PACT will create a centralized institutional review board, which is intended to:
- Lower administrative costs for trial sites; and
- Enable more competitive payments for trial participants.
By the third quarter of 2014, the partnership expects to release a tool that will help identify possible study participants through the use of electronic health records. In addition, PACT expects by the end of the year to offer coordinated budgeting and coverage analysis services.
Ryan said the partnership is being watched by NIH as a possible national model, adding, "It's already California-wide and will go beyond that."
Participants
Groups and facilities participating in the initiative include:
- Children's Hospital Oakland;
- Dignity Health;
- Five University of California campuses;
- Loma Linda University;
- Scripps Health;
- Stanford University; and
- Sutter Health (Leuty, "BiotechSF," San Francisco Business Times, 1/29).