The Good Data Submission Doctor: CDISC For COVID-19

By Angelo Tinazzi, Senior Director, Statistical Programming, Clinical Data Standards and Clinical Data Submission, Cytel

From the time the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic, the number of studies conducted around the world to either diagnose, prevent or treat the virus literally exploded (1570 as on today, according to the Cytel Global Coronavirus COVID-19 Clinical Trial Tracker¹).

Moreover, the pandemic impacted the regular schedule of ongoing clinical trials. Health authorities such as the FDA, promptly provided recommendations in the form of questions and answers on how to handle “disruptions” due to the pandemic². These disruptions include a range of challenges including skipped assessments or study withdrawal.

“CDISC launched a task force in an effort to support CDISC members and the research community as they work tirelessly to discover critical breakthroughs to treat COVID-19 …. The task force was launched with the goal of developing Interim User Guide and Related material” said David Bobbitt, CDISC CEO, in an interview with Outsourcing-Pharma.com³. On April 21, 2020, the task force released two guidances. In this blog, I provide you with a quick summary of what these guidances address.