In watching respiratory therapists recruit for two studies under way in her departments at both Mount Sinai Hospital and SickKids Hospital in Toronto, neonatologist Sharon Unger thought she saw a trend. It appeared that respiratory therapists were talking to far more parents about entering their infants into the large, multi-center trial that rewarded recruiters for successfully enrolling…more...

Quintiles has shifted its prime sites program into high gear. A bit more than two years ago, the contract research organization (CRO) had just one site designated as prime, meaning it had reached the top of the heap as a voluminous and consistent source of patients with a healthy smattering of investigators across a variety of therapeutic…more...

If the International Alliance of Patients Organizations (IAPO) gets its way, patients will soon sit at the table with scientists to offer input into the design of study protocols. Not in a forceful or adversarial way, says Jeremiah Mwangi, IAPO's senior policy officer, but in a way that benefits everyone. Picture, for example, a pediatric epilepsy trial…more...

When French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Aventis (SA) recently gathered representatives from several investigator sites to ask them for feedback, the drug maker got a shock. An SA executive began to talk about an electronic collaboration portal, one where sites could interact with the sponsor, and he got cut off by what amounted to boos and hisses. “Turned out,…more...