The clinical operations function of a company is all about organisation, and optimising this function is key to the delivery of clinical trials โ without a functioning clinical operations team no clinical research activity could be delivered. There are more than 300,000 clinical trials ongoing worldwide at any time, so effective clinical operations could save a lot of time and money in the drug development process.Since 2004, clinical trials in Germany have to be approved by the respective competent federal higher authority (depending on the type of product, either the BfArMor thePEI). This approval is required in addition to the favourable opinion from the competent Ethics Committee.
Clinical trials are a necessity for the treatment, diagnosis and prevention of diseases, but recruiting patients to conduct them can prove to be a challenge for clinical operations teams. Quantitative studies conducted found that 11% of investigative sites failed to enrol a single patient. In a way to combat this, clinical operations teams are turning to social media to recruit patients for their trials.A study of 20 leading pharmaceutical companies including Lilly, Pfizer and Novartis has shown how some have already piloted or tapped into social media with good results, with the report finding the number of patients being recruited on social media is increasing by 11%, year on year.
The payoff to a career in clinical operations is, of course, the satisfaction that comes with being involved in potentially lifesaving research, and enticingly most people working in clinical operations are usually paid excellent remunerations due to the importance of their role and the responsibility it carries. Clinical operations is a vital part of the global healthcare business intelligence market โ a market that is expected to reach โฌ9.6bn by 2025, registering a CAGR of 12.8% during this period.
