Clinical Trial Podcast | Conversations with Clinical Research Experts

To learn about community engagement in clinical trials, what it means, recent regulations and guidance documents, I invited Chris Komelasky, CEO and Co-founder of SiteBridge Research, on the podcast.  SiteBridge Research is an Integrated Research Organization (IRO). Chris and his team help connect physicians and their patients to clinical trials and facilitate the process by reducing barriers for sites and participants. Prior to the launch of SiteBridge, Chris has held various leadership roles at PPD, GlaxoSmithKline, Accenture and ZS Associates. Chris holds a B.S. in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Duke University and resides with his wife and three children in Chapel Hill, NC. Please join me in welcoming Chris on the Clinical Trial Podcast. Sponsors: This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope drives operational excellence for highly complex, sample-intensive, early-phase clinical trials. The platform transforms chaotic clinical trial supply chains into protocol-specific operational workflows for sponsors, CROs, clinical research sites and labs. Learn more at https://www.slopeclinical.com/ This podcast is brought to you by Veeva. Veeva connects patients, sites, and sponsors, on a single technology ecosystem to make clinical trials easier and faster. I’m particularly excited about Veeva SiteVault. SiteVault gives research sites one place to work with sponsors - to reduce the number of systems and logins used to run clinical trials. To learn more, visit https://sites.veeva.com/.

Community health system-based research continues to become an important focus area for pharmaceutical and medical device sponsors given the recent FDA guidance on diversity in clinical trials.  Our guest for this episode is JoAnne Levy, Vice President at Mercy Research, a part of Mercyhealth.  Mercy Research is one of the largest fully integrated, community health system-based research organizations in the United States with more than 40 acute care, managed, and specialty hospitals, convenient urgent care locations, imaging centers and pharmacies. In 2022, over 38,000 Mercy patients contributed to research learning. JoAnne has served in the healthcare industry for almost 30 years. She leads Mercy Research, a not-for-profit organization managing clinical and real-world-evidence research activities across Mercy. JoAnne serves as current Chair and inaugural founder of Mercy Women in Leadership Council and as a member of Mercy’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Advisory Board. JoAnne received her undergraduate, law and master of business administration degrees — all with honors — from Washington University in St. Louis.  Please join me in welcoming JoAnne on the Clinical Trial Podcast.  This podcast is brought to you by Veeva. Veeva connects patients, sites, and sponsors, on a single technology ecosystem to make clinical trials easier and faster. I’m particularly excited about Veeva SiteVault. SiteVault gives research sites one place to work with sponsors - to reduce the number of systems and logins used to run clinical trials. To learn more, visit https://sites.veeva.com/. This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope drives operational excellence for highly complex, sample-intensive, early-phase clinical trials. The platform transforms chaotic clinical trial supply chains into protocol-specific operational workflows for sponsors, CROs, clinical research sites and labs. Learn more at slopeclinical.com  

In this episode, we’re going to talk about Postmarket Surveillance Studies.  In light of the EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR), medical device manufacturers are required to implement a Postmarket Surveillance (PMS) plan, which in turn may require them to conduct Postmarket Surveillance Studies.  The importance of such studies has grown in recent years as regulators want to know about the safety and effectiveness during the lifetime of a medical device.  To learn about Postmarket Surveillance Studies regulatory requirements, process for collecting clinical data for such studies, key elements of PMS plan, and more, I invited Dr. David Rutledge on the podcast. David is the President & CEO at Global Strategic Solutions, where he works as a global consultant for clinical evaluations, clinical risk management, regulatory, quality, and clinical investigations.  David brings over 25 years of experience and knowledge in product-level analysis, clinical protocol and case report form development, scientific data analysis, organizational design, integration of science with business needs, quality management systems, signal detection, global clinical evaluations, clinical risk management, and regulatory affairs.  David is Six Sigma and CAPA certified, an ISO 13485 lead auditor, and author of Mythical Medical™: Revelations from a Global Product Approval Consultant.  * This podcast is brought to you by Florence Healthcare. Florence eliminates chaotic workflows in clinical research operations with remote access and digital workflow platforms. More than 10,000 study sites, sponsors, and CROs in 45 countries trust them to accelerate their operations. To learn more, visit https://florencehc.com  This podcast is brought to you by Calyx. Calyx is a trusted name in medical imaging, having delivered imaging services to meet the needs of global biopharmaceutical sponsors and clinical research organizations for over 25 years. To learn more, visit https://www.calyx.ai/ *  

In this episode, we explore the role of design in clinical trials. Most clinical research professionals are so focused on protocol design, data collection, and analysis that it’s easy to overlook the importance of well-designed technology that supports clinical trials. One such technology product is electronic Patient Reported Outcomes or ePROs. ePROs are surveys that are presented to and completed by clinical trial participants as part of the study requirements.  To learn more about ePROs and the role of design in clinical trials, I invited Bruce Hellman and Ben James on the Clinical Trial Podcast.  Ben is the Chief Design Officer and Co-founder at uMotif. Bruce is the Chief Patient Officer & Co-Founder at uMotif. Please join me in welcoming Bruce and Ben on the Clinical Trial Podcast. * This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope drives operational excellence for highly complex, sample-intensive, early-phase clinical trials. The platform transforms chaotic clinical trial supply chains into protocol-specific operational workflows for sponsors, CROs, clinical research sites and labs. Learn more at slopeclinical.com This podcast is brought to you by Florence Healthcare. Florence eliminates chaotic workflows in clinical research operations with remote access and digital workflow platforms. More than 12,000 study sites, sponsors, and CROs in 45 countries trust them to accelerate their operations. To learn more, visit https://florencehc.com  *

There are advantages and disadvantages when it comes to being a standalone clinical trial site.  Standalone clinical trial sites enjoy the freedom of running their own operations. But they may face challenges with executing some parts of a clinical trial.  This is where site networks come in.  For example, a site can run more efficient marketing campaigns, be more systematic in its clinical trial operations, or share patient recruitment and retention resources by being part of a site network. To learn more about site networks, I invited Christian Burns, President of Elligo Health Research and Co-Founder of ClinX, on the show. Christian is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and founder of multiple clinical trial companies, including ClinEdge, BTC Network, and Guidestar Research.  Christian has a track record of success in the pharmaceutical industry, with a particular focus on decentralized and direct-to-patient clinical trials.  With experience across most therapeutic areas and a presence in over 30 languages and 40 countries, Christian's companies have served patients and providers across thousands of research sites globally.  His goal is to accelerate the development of new therapies by creating innovative solutions that connect and empower the clinical trial ecosystem.  A native of Philadelphia, Christian holds a B.A. in Public Health from the University of Tampa. Enjoy! Sponsors: This podcast is brought to you by Veeva. Veeva connects patients, sites, and sponsors, on a single technology ecosystem to make clinical trials easier and faster. I’m particularly excited about Veeva SiteVault. SiteVault gives research sites one place to work with sponsors - to reduce the number of systems and logins used to run clinical trials. To learn more, visit https://sites.veeva.com/. This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope’s eClinical Supply Chain Management (eCSCM) platform reduces clinical trial risks, reigns in costs, improves the productivity of clinical trial collaborators, and increases subject retention by removing the manual, spreadsheet-driven, and error-prone processes used to manage and track clinical supplies and biological samples to a digital platform. To learn more, visit slope.io.   

In this episode, I’m excited for you to learn about Heart Failure Clinical Trials for medical devices. Our guest today is Sonna Patel-Raman. Sonna is currently the President at NuPulse Inc, an early stage medical device company responsible for developing the first minimally invasive, long-term, ambulatory counterpulsation device that works in sync with the heart. At NuPulse, Sonna is responsible for developing and executing on strategic initiatives for the company, building a diverse and multidisciplinary team of engineers, regulatory and quality associates, marketing, manufacturing, clinical affairs and education, and trial operations. Sonna and her team successfully completed enrollment in an FDA-approved feasibility trial and are now working towards the next phase of their medical product development lifecycle. Sonna has extensive experience in the heart failure medical device space. Prior to joining NuPulse in 2015, she worked as the FDA Branch Chief where she managed a team of 16+ reviewers and clinicians and was responsible for the technical review and development of pre-marketing approvals (PMAs), Investigational Device Exemption (IDEs), 510k)s and more. In this interview, Sonna provides us with a great introduction to heart failure trials, an overview of the medical device ecosystem for the treatment of heart failure, unique operational considerations for heart failure clinical trials, working as a woman leader in the medtech space, and more. Sonna is an effective communicator (as you’ll soon find out after listening to this interview) and an amazing human being. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Sonna Patel-Raman.  Sponsors: This podcast is brought to you by Veeva. Veeva connects patients, sites, and sponsors, on a single technology ecosystem to make clinical trials easier and faster. I’m particularly excited about Veeva SiteVault. SiteVault gives research sites one place to work with sponsors - to reduce the number of systems and logins used to run clinical trials. To learn more, visit https://sites.veeva.com/. This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope’s eClinical Supply Chain Management (eCSCM) platform reduces clinical trial risks, reigns in costs, improves the productivity of clinical trial collaborators, and increases subject retention by removing the manual, spreadsheet-driven, and error-prone processes used to manage and track clinical supplies and biological samples to a digital platform. To learn more, visit slope.io. 

To learn more about site reads and the role of medical imaging software, I invited Kelie Williams Luby, Vice President of Clinical Trials at Mint Medical.  Kelie has 24 years of experience as a clinical trial researcher, first as a medicinal chemist, and for the past 19 years as a clinical trialist in medical imaging-based endpoints. She is passionate about optimizing clinical trial designs while reducing the cognitive burden placed on healthcare providers treating patients in those clinical trials. Kelie believes it is possible to improve the efficiency of how clinical trials with imaging-based endpoints are conducted while also improving the reliability of data abstracted from participants during clinical trials.  She holds a B.S and M.S in Chemistry along with a Master’s in Technical, Scientific, and Medical Communication.  Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by Calyx. Calyx is a trusted name in medical imaging, having delivered imaging services to meet the needs of global biopharmaceutical sponsors and clinical research organizations for over 25 years. To learn more, visit https://www.calyx.ai/

This is a special episode on risk management. It is important to understand what dictates the work we do as clinical research professionals and how our work fits into the bigger picture of medical product development. This episode serves exactly that purpose. You’ll be introduced to ISO 14971 Application of risk management to medical devices and learn about its relationship to ISO 14155 Clinical investigation of medical devices for human subjects — Good clinical practice. You’ll also understand key terminology around risks, how to define risk, what's special about clinical studies with respect to risk management, and much more. Our guest today is Bijan Elahi. Bijan has worked in risk management for medical devices for over 29 years at the largest medical device companies in the world, as well as small startups. He is a technical fellow and Medtronic corporate advisor on safety risk management of. medical devices.  In this capacity, he offers education and consulting on risk management to all Medtronic business units, worldwide.  Bijan is a lecturer at Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands), where he teaches risk management to doctoral students in engineering. At the invitation of the FDA, he also teaches a graduate course on medical device risk management at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Bijan is the founder of MedTech Safety, Inc., an education and advisory company. He has educated over 6,500 individuals worldwide. Bijan is a frequently invited speaker at international professional conferences, and is also a contributor to ISO 14971, the international standard on the application of risk management to medical devices.  Last but not least, he is the author of Safety Risk Management for Medical Devices, published by Elsevier publishing. Enjoy! Sponsor: This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope provides an online eClinical Supply Chain Management (eCSCM) platform for sponsors and research sites collaborating on complex, sample-intensive, early-stage clinical trials. The Slope eCSCM platform reduces clinical trial risks, reigns in costs, improves the productivity of clinical trial collaborators, and increases subject retention by moving the manual, spreadsheet-driven, and error-prone processes used to manage and track clinical supplies and biological samples to a digital platform.  To learn more, visit slope.io and ask to speak with a solutions coordinator today.

In this episode, I’m excited to share with you 5 Strategies for planning and conducting investigator and steering committee meetings.  Now that the world is starting to re-open after the COVID-19 pandemic, more sponsors are conducting in-person meetings with key opinion leaders (KOLs).  These meetings are exceptionally critical to the success of any medical product development. The purpose of these meetings is to discuss the clinical trial strategy, clinical investigational plan, patient enrollment initiatives, publication plan, and more. Although it entirely possible to conduct these meetings virtually (and sometimes you’re better off conducting them virtually), the focus of this episode is on in-person meetings. But most meetings tend to poorly organized with lack of purpose and defined objectives i.e. what is it that you hope to achieve by conducting this meeting. If you’re directly or in-directly involved in organizing a meeting with KOLs, this episode will serve you well. This episode is brought to you by Calyx. To learn more on how Calyx can help you with your medical imaging needs, please visit calyx.ai

When a new drug or device undergoes “first in human” experience, the primary focus is on participant safety. How will the drug or device interact with the human body? And will this interaction be safe? To answer these two questions, regulatory authorities around the world require medical product manufacturers to conduct Phase I, also known as early phase clinical trials. To learn more about the complexities in early phase clinical trials, I invited Dr. Oren Cohen, President of Clinical Pharmacology Services and Chief Medical Officer at Labcorp Drug Development on the show. Dr. Cohen has more than 30 years of healthcare experience which includes his work on clinical development.  I hope you enjoy this conversation with Dr. Oren Cohen. Podcast Sponsor: This podcast episode is brought to you by Calyx. Calyx is a trusted name in medical imaging, having delivered imaging services to meet the needs of global biopharmaceutical sponsors and clinical research organizations for over 25 years. To learn more, visit calyx.ai   

Phase I trials are generally conducted in healthy participants or in patients with no treatment options such as oncology patients. Unlike late phase trials, Phase I (also known as early phase) studies have different patient recruitment challenges. To learn more, I invited Dr. Graham Wood, Executive Vice President, USA at Nucleus Network. Dr. Wood is a leader in the conduct and design of clinical pharmacology studies having held senior executive roles in a number of the top clinical research sites in the world. In total, he has over 22 years of experience and has been involved with more than 200 first-in-human studies as well as over 2,000 studies across all areas of clinical pharmacology. After finishing his PhD in Neurology and Neurosurgery, Graham worked at MDS Pharma Services, Cetero Research, Manna Research and Altasciences as well as spending two years working at biotechnology companies. * This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope provides an online eClinical Supply Chain Management (eCSCM) platform for sponsors and research sites collaborating on complex, sample-intensive, early-stage clinical trials. The Slope eCSCM platform reduces clinical trial risks, reigns in costs, improves the productivity of clinical trial collaborators, and increases subject retention by moving the manual, spreadsheet-driven, and error-prone processes used to manage and track clinical supplies and biological samples to a digital platform.  To learn more, visit slope.io and ask to speak with a solutions coordinator today.  *

Medical Imaging in Clinical Trials with Elizabeth Dalton In this episode, I’m excited to talk about medical imaging in clinical trials.  We’ll discuss the role of a medical imaging CRO, imaging endpoints in clinical trials, expensive mistakes to avoid as a trial Sponsor/ CRO, saving money on medical imaging services, imaging data collection process, and more. The guest for today’s show is a long time friend of mine, Elizabeth Hartunian Dalton, Vice President at Calyx.   Liz is a seasoned clinical trial professional with 17+ years of experience working with sponsors, sites, and CROs in centralized medical imaging and clinical trials. Driven by a passion for service, Liz’s ethos is rooted in honesty, productivity, commitment, and the power of positive energy.  In addition to her primary role of growing the Calyx partnership/CRO channel, Liz leads a team of technical solution consultants and is a medical imaging consultant herself.  Liz attended the University of Massachusetts where she achieved dual Bachelor degrees in Anthropology and Economics (magna cum laude) and will graduate in May 2023 with her MBA from Boston University’s Questrom School of Business.  Please join me in welcoming Liz on the Clinical Trial Podcast.  This episode is brought to you by Calyx. To learn more about Calyx, please visit https://www.calyx.ai/ 

Who owns the clinical trial data generated in industry sponsored or investigator initiated clinical trials? What responsibilities do Sponsors, CROs, or Sites have when it comes to sharing clinical trial results with patients? Should a Sponsor get access to patient data collected outside a clinical trial setting? To answer these questions and more, I invited Darshan Kulkarni to the show. Darshan is a regulatory attorney specializing in FDA law, professor, author, and speaker. He is currently the Principal Attorney of Kulkarni Law Firm where he focuses his practice on providing healthcare companies with legal, compliance, and regulatory advice. He has led rare disease pharmaceutical companies in developing global programs to foster clinical trial transparency and enhance public health. He serves on the editorial board for Applied Clinical Trials at Advanstar Communications serving as a legal advisor on the clinical trial industry.  Previously, Darshan was on the editorial board of cosmetics and personal products for FDAnews where guided the publication with his clinical trial and pharmaceutical expertise. Last but not the least he is the host of the DarshanTalks livestream interviews where he discusses issues that impact the life science industry. This podcast is brought to you by Florence Healthcare. The learn more, please visit florencehc.com  

In the fiscal year 2021, the National Institute of Health (NIH) funded only 16,959 out of 80,878 research project grants.  In other words, the success rate was 21%. And the total funding amount was $8,827,444,624. The question I had was, “What does it take to get grant approval and launch an NIH funded research project?” To answer this question, I invited Dr. Manish Shah,  Professor of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and Attending Physician in the Texas Children’s Hospital Emergency Center in Houston.  Dr. Shah has served on several national committees to advocate for improvements in pediatric and prehospital emergency care.  His research has focused on developing, implementing, and studying outcomes related to evidence-based protocols for various clinical conditions, including seizures.  Dr. Shah is currently the Principal Investigator for the Pediatric Dose Optimization for Seizures in Emergency Medical Services (PediDOSE) study, which has been funded by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and is being conducted in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN). Please join me in welcoming Dr. Shah on the Clinical Trial Podcast.  This episode is brought you by Florence Healthcare. To learn more, please visit https://florencehc.com/