March Partnerships with CROs LinkedIn Roundup

The March Partnerships with CROs LinkedIn Roundup is here! Read the newsletter here. If you haven't had a chance to join our Partnerships with CROs LinkedIn Group, join now!

We also had a special message from Lesly Atlas, the Partnerships with CROs Event Director, about what benefits you'll find at Partnerships with CROs as a LinkedIn member.

Premier Acquires Pivotal Research Centers

According to this article in Clinical Trials Today Premier Research, a CRO based in the UK, has finalized its deal with Pioneer to acquire Pivotal Research Centers, which is a site management organization that specializes in phase II and phase IIa clinical trials.

Pioneer’s president and CEO Bruce Shear recently mentioned, “The completed sale of Pivotal advances our plan to focus on our faster growing core business of delivering behavioral health care.”

More suicidal monitoring needed in clinical trials?

In a recent post by Dr. Michael McKelvey, he addresses the issue of suicide monitoring in clinical trials. He states that the number seeking regulatory approval is increasing. And the FDA has recently issued guidelines for the topic. However, there needs to be a fully structured, procedurally reliable and replicated process for monitoring suicidality. What do you think? Is this an issue for your clinical trials?

i3 Launches New Software to Manage Clinical Trials Activities

This article in Clinical Trials Today discusses how i3, a contract research organization, has launched a new web-based clinical trials and data management program that will replace the need for multiple systems to manage all of these activities.

i3 CEO Glenn Bilawsky mentions, “i3Cube was designed to provide our clients and clinical investigators with a simple, easy-to-use, and streamlined experience. We brought together our use of proprietary health care claims data with our clinical research expertise and developed i3Cube to create time and cost efficiencies for our customers.”

It will be interesting to see what other web-based applications will be released in the upcoming months to help improve efficiency in outsourced clinical trials.

Staffing services now offered by PharmaNet

CRO PharmaNet has expanded its services to now provide clinical trial staffing which will include on-demand staffing, strategic alliances, functional service staffing and quality control services.

PharmaNet president and CEO Jeffrey P. McMullen said "Our solutions-based staffing business provides another entry point with large pharmaceutical clients by offering them a new alternative with PharmaNet quality built-in."

For more on the story, read here.

Contract work for clinical trials on the upswing

The Pharma Times reported yesterday that 84% of respondents claimed that they'd be interested in contract work when it comes to clinical trials.

While the perceived benefits of contracting – better remuneration, independence and flexible working – were offset in the survey by inhibitions about job security and loss of company benefits, 55% of the respondents recognised there was an increasing shift towards contract-based employment in the sector, with more than 20% seeing it as the prevailing dynamic.

For the complete article, read here.

A New Low in Drug Research: 21 Fabricated Studies

According to WSJ.com, Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Mass., has asked several anesthesiology journals to retract the studies, which appeared between 1996 and 2008, the WSJ reports. The hospital says its former chief of acute pain, Scott S. Reuben, faked data used in the studies.

Some of the studies reported favorable results from use of Pfizer’s Bextra and Merck’s Vioxx, both painkillers that have since been pulled from the market. Others offered good news about Pfizer’s pain drugs Lyrica Celebrex and Wyeth’s antidepressant Effexor XR. Doctors said Reuben’s work was particularly influential in pain treatment and that they were shocked by the news.

Read more on the WSJ.com's health blog.