Should The Size And Name Recognition Of A CRO Matter In The Selection Process?

Of all the tasks that are handled by executives in clinical operations, few bring as much anxiety and stress as the selection of a CRO partner. Make the right choice and your trial will be a breeze. Make the wrong choice and your trial can go off the rails and require the necessary but hated task of CRO replacement.

In this Clinical Leader Live discussion, two industry veterans join Clinical Leader chief editor Ed Miseta to share tips and insights on successful CRO selection. Audrey Rossow, senior director of clinical operations for Pulmatrix, and Tommy Lee, VP of clinical operations for TissueTech, share their CRO selection insights from over 40 years in the industry. In this segment, Rossow and Lee discuss CRO name recognition and how it relates to CRO selection.

View the full presentation here.

Ed Miseta: As the head of a clinical operations group, is it ever easier for you to select a CRO partner because their name happens to be well-known in the industry? Are you ever told to work with a certain CRO?

Audrey Rossow: You're spot on. I was a consultant for years, and then I joined Pulmatrix in the fall with a lot of that decision-making responsibility. Just recently, we have a new board member who used to work at one of the very commonly known large international CROs. My CEO to whom I report said, well, “Let's look at this one and that one and the other one.” Then I heard he [the board member] used to work at this large global CRO. At that point, I thought, “He can have my office,” because that is where I'm going to have to put my foot down.

I've been through that. I may be going through that in the next six to 12 months. But I will probably make a good business case to say, you know, it just doesn't make sense for us. Thank you for the insight. Thank you for the ideas. I'm happy to look at some of the large global CROs, again, some of the smaller, more niche ones, but I'm really hoping I don't get told which CRO I have to use. That would be really unfortunate. So, you were actually very spot on about that.

Please click on the video above to see the rest of this interview.