The Secret Sauce In Successful Clinical Trial Payments Programs

By Jackie Torres and Jason Fanelli, IQVIA Technologies

On the surface, making payments to investigators for running clinical trials sounds easy. Why isn’t the process simply handled by a pharmaceutical company’s Accounts Payable department, similar to how other vendors are paid?

The primary reason is that relationships between pharmaceutical sponsors of clinical trials and the investigators that perform the trials are highly regulated and require the utmost in transparency. Every payment must be justified as an accomplishment defined in the Clinical Trial Agreement (CTA) between sponsor and site.

If it still sounds as though QuickBooks or SAP can handle the site payments process, then consider that every trial brings a unique combination of sponsor-site relationships, protocol requirements, and clinical technologies to trigger payments. Additionally, each country has its own set of regulations and requirements to govern clinical trials and how investigators get paid.

Thus, the capability for sponsors to pay sites consistently in the promised timeframe, as well as provide transparency throughout the process so sites know exactly what they are getting paid for and when, is lacking throughout the industry. This sentiment has been captured year after year in various surveys of investigators and site personnel.

Many clinical technology companies offer specialized software solutions to help manage several components of the site payments process; however, these systems still require a large effort by the sponsor to operate. Outside of the US and Canada, paying sites is filled with challenges and nuances that even focused software and integrated technology platforms cannot solve alone.