The recruitment of minority patients is hard under any circumstances. But finding research subjects for conditions with a social stigma is especially difficult. Barbara Gladson is director of the biopharma educational initiative at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ). She gave a fascinating presentation on her work at the 2010 annual Drug Information…more...

If you're a clinical research site accepting studies from industry, you've probably seen it. The dreaded cross-indemnification clause. It's an increasingly common element of standard contracts. Under cross indemnification, sites take full responsibility if anything goes wrong. That responsibility attaches to the site whether or not a mishap was its fault or the sponsor's. Such clauses have…more...

In the early 1990s, site management organizations (SMOs) began to form. The idea was simple. Sponsors would be happier if they could go to a single company that served as the management headquarters of many sites, instead of having to approach many disparate, individually run sites separately and forge contracts with each. SMOs like Radiant Research started…more...

Within the sprawling Loma Linda Veterans Healthcare System in Redlands, California, sits the non-profit research arm Loma Linda Veterans Association for Research and Education , and in a corner of its 54,000 square foot space in the hospital, there sits the small Clinical Research Group, hard at work on Phase III and IV projects. The 12-person team…more...