Five Tips For Negotiating Clinical Trial Budgets In Inflationary Times

By Morgan King, IQVIA Technologies

Rapid inflation and staffing shortages make it more difficult for research sites and pharmaceutical sponsors to agree to a clinical trial budget. According to Jenn Hill, Director of Clinical Site Contracting and Payments for Vertex Pharmaceuticals, inflation and high attrition rates have complicated the relationship between sites and sponsors. Sites respond to inflation with expanded budgets, extra reimbursements, and, in some cases, annual price sheets with increased rates.

Negotiating budgets takes longer as sponsors research requests to justify new budget items, and staffing shortages affect site response times. Supply chain and vendor lags are also taking their toll on sites. Here are five ways sponsors should respond in these inflationary times:

1. Be mindful and communicate frequently with sites.
2. Back your decisions with industry data.
3. Take advantage of multiple tools and benchmarks.
4. Keep your data updated.
5. Adopt GrantPlan’s Site Budget Capture tool.