Clinical Trial Marketing: Connecting with Sponsors and CROs

Christine:

Well, hello, everybody! Today, we are going to talk about how clinical research sites can talk to their Clients, Sponsors and CROs so that they can get more trials and more business. And today we are with Felicia Irvin, who is the Executive Director of Business Development at Centricity Research. Welcome!

Felicia:

Hi! Thank you!

Christine:

So, you are an expert in Business Development. Tell us about what that means.

Felicia:

Sure! So, I think the most important part is to start with is asking what your customer wants. What does your sponsor want before we can really dig into how we are going to talk to them? And I would say, in a nutshell, what the sponsor wants is sites that do have access to the patients, that can enroll them in the trials in the amount that they said they could, in the time they said they could, with quality data, and are pleasant to work with.

Christine:

So, let's have some practical tips. If there is a site that is newer to research, what would you like to tell them?

Felicia:

Sure. I love one-pagers. So, we do one-pagers for our sites, we do one-pagers for specific therapeutic areas, and I think that is a great place to start for a site to really outline their capabilities and outline what they are able to do. But taking a step back before they would create that one-pager, they really need to figure out what sponsor they want to talk to and why. So, what is your therapeutic area of interest? Are you an expert into the dermatology field? If that is the case, then go through and look at all the sponsors that work in the dermatology field. What molecules do they have? What appeals to you? And then you can get that “hit list” of who you are going to talk to. Then you can go back to that one-pager and really customize it to reflect, “OK, this is what I've done in dermatology. This is what my site is capable of.” Putting this into a one-page glance, you could give that to the sponsor, (especially if you are in a meeting with them), and you could talk to them about it, but then it's also a leave behind, so they have it to reference later.

Christine:

Those are great tips. Now, would any of those tips change or be different if the site actually has experience in research?

Felicia:

With experience in research, I would definitely highlight your metrics from your trials. So, any trials that you have done, what different areas have you done research in, how many patients did you put in, what was the speed, what were your retention rates, dropout rate, screen fails... all those things are really important to sponsors and they love to see that you are tracking those yourself.

Christine:

I've heard you talk at conferences about diversity as well, so probably some metrics around, you know, what your patient population looks like.

So, after people watch this video, everyone who does not already have a one-pager is probably going to have a one-pager. So, now, how does the site differentiate itself?

Felicia:

Sure. So, I would say the number one word to think about here is KPIs. Do you have them? I hope your answer is yes, you have them, and what you track and what's important. So, KPIs are going to be important for your one-pagers and understanding what those metrics look like. How quickly can you open a study? How close to the sponsor enrollment goal do you get, or do you over-enroll? Time to get your regulatory packet in? All those things are really important and showing that you track your KPIs makes a sponsor have a lot more faith than you. They're tracking it, but we should be tracking it ourselves as research companies. And then you also mentioned diversity earlier-- you should definitely track your diversity metrics. Not just the diversity of your community, but how you have reflected that in your research trials to show that you are actually giving research options to patients in your community. ALL patients.

Christine:

That was fantastic. Thank you so much for your time. I know how busy you are, and I think we all appreciate these insights. So have a great day.

Felicia:

Thank you. Bye!