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A CRO's view: partnerships and patient-centricity

Posted by on 31 May 2017
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Mike Jagielski, CEO of contract research organization KCR, is confident that by ensuring clarification in the delineation of roles between CRO and pharma companies, it will naturally lead to the empowerment of the CRO. By all parties agreeing and adhering to their agreed roles, he believes the partnerships created will be stronger and easier to navigate.

Jagielski  knows the role of the CRO and is aware that it's not beneficial to remove authority from the sponsor company in the project:

‘It’s their project, it’s their baby, it’s what they’re working on for many, many years and you, as a CRO, are only part of it for a certain period of time. We have to respect that, and let pharma companies be part of the execution.’

It is this heightened understanding of each party’s role that leads to increased satisfaction.

Additionally, in empowering the CRO, the needs of the patient cannot be forgotten. Jageilski notes that the patient-centric approach is what ‘everyone is thinking about’, but, like many involved in clinical research, he is not quite sure which direction it is evolving in. He believes that every project is naturally focussed on patients in some way as the research project cannot be completed without them.

Whilst Jagielski acknowledges that new apps, tools and approaches are shaping the future of patient-centricity in clinical trials, he is wary that CROs and Pharma companies must be conscious of not ‘just looking towards technology for the solutions’. It is important not to negate the patient’s role by displacing their authority with innovative, but sometimes unfamiliar technology.

Jagielski is excited to see how recent collaborations such as the merger between Quintiles and IMS Health evolve. He notes ‘the intention is to create a new type of service category, combining healthcare data more thoroughly with a type of service industry in the clinical research, execution space'. The merger will hopefully shed some light on the use of data and databases within research as there is currently very little information on this within the public domain.

Watch the full interview, filmed at Partnerships in Clinical Trials Europe, above or here. Explore the 2017 Partnerships in Clinical Trials Europe agenda here. 

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