WCG Podcast: Pioneers of Clinical Research
Feb 13, 2020
An Inside Look at the Role of Data Monitoring Committees with Dr. Jonathan Seltzer
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In this episode, WCG’s President of Patient Advocacy, Steve Smith, interviews Dr. Jonathan Seltzer, MD, Chief Scientific Officer at WCG, expert on data safety monitoring boards, biomarkers, biostatistics, and clinical endpoints. During their conversation, Steve and Dr. Seltzer discuss how biomarkers are appropriate for the use of trials, especially when clinical data is tough to get. Part of this discussion turns to Duchenne’s Muscular Dystrophy (an inherited rare muscular disease) on how Patient Advocacy Groups are working with the FDA to define risk vs. benefit, and how promising a biomarker for this condition - as well as many other rare disorders - would be.
More episodes from WCG Podcast: Pioneers of Clinical Research
Jan 8, 2021
Lisa LaLuna, Matchmaking to Save Lives: The Clinical Trial Search Tool for Everyone
From a career devoted to finding better ways to connect patient volunteers to clinical trials, Lisa LaLuna knows why the public needed an online search tool that is easier to use than the traditional methods of access.
“Members of the public often want to find a trial to access the latest medicine, or help a family member, or just to participate as a healthy volunteer to further medical research. Pharmaceutical companies that run clinical trials of course want to enroll patients so their research can be successful. In spite of this mutual desire to work together, patients and trial organizers often cannot find each other,” Lisa explains.
Some trials are stopped because they cannot enroll enough people and others are delayed because enrollment takes too long. In this unfortunate scenario – one that happens too often – this slows down the development of treatments and cures that patients depend on.
Lisa explains the importance of this search tool in providing a simple, fast way to discover trials specific to a disease, a location, and the personal characteristics of volunteers being sought.
“You can even opt in to be notified when more trials are posted, and send a message to the local trial site to request contact to learn more and possibly be screened for qualification purposes. “ Lisa explains.
This free website can be found by anyone at centerwatch.com/clinical-trials.
Visitors to the site will find basic information about what a clinical trial is and why someone would want to participate.
Patient Advocacy groups are providing this website to their members to educate them about the value of clinical trials and where to find them, in order to support the search for cures. Patient groups like the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the rare disease group The Rett Syndrome Foundation are enthusiastic about how their use of this tool is helping them help their communities of patients and their families.
“Clinical trial search tools have been too complicated in the past and we sought to create a tool that is simple and fast so anyone can use it,” Lisa explains. “Seeing the adoption by Patient Advocacy Groups is most satisfying.”
Lisa LaLuna of WCG Patient Advocacy has thirty years working in clinical trials and is a passionate advocate for easing the search for trials for those wishing to volunteer.
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Dec 16, 2020
Connecting Patients to Trials: Bernadette Siddiqi of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research
Bernadette Siddiqi, associate director of research partnerships at The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research talks about how they give members of the public access to the Fox Trial Finder. This clinical trial search tool that allows anyone to search for Parkinson’s disease clinical trials. More than 300 are listed on the site.
It’s a bottleneck in clinical research. Patients are eager for a cure, but it can be difficult for them to connect to trials and for researchers to connect to volunteers.
Bernadette speaks of why it is critical to the foundation’s mission to provide an easy way to make this connection. Just as important, she says, is educating people about research. Fox Trial Finder provides both. Roughly 700 people visit the site each month.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease through an aggressively funded research agenda.
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Dec 1, 2020
Ros Cheetham, Pharmaceutical Industry Professional, Volunteers for a COVID-19 Trial
After more than 25 years working to plan and conduct clinical trials at pharmaceutical companies, Ros Cheetham decided to put herself into the patient role: She volunteered to participate in a COVID vaccine clinical trial.
She discusses why she decided to participate in the trial and shares her experiences. So far, it’s all been positive: She speaks of modern methods, safety and the well-organized approach and thoughtful communications used by the clinical research site.
She also talks about the barriers, such as distance, that prevent some people from participating in clinical trials, and calls on the industry to help potential participants to overcome those barriers. Studies must be as inclusive as possible so clinical research can benefit a more representative cross-section of our society.
She also exhorts individuals to, like her, become clinical trial volunteers. Trials need volunteers, and everyone should have the experience of being in a clinical trial.
Cheetham is a pharmaceutical development professional providing expertise in global drug development, global clinical operations solutions and partnership and alliance strategy. Her broad industry experience encompasses several vice president positions. She has led product development teams through successful filings and commercialization of new drugs as well as having implemented innovative global operational solutions that provided cost savings with timely execution and high quality.
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