The main three issues that Sponsors put forward for reducing the number of sites in the UK are:
- Bureaucratic ethical submissions
- Poor patient recruitment
- High Investigator fees
My own experience is that ethics submissions may take up to 4 months depending on the quality of the submission and resultant questions raised after application reviewed. However, I have found that choosing the correct Investigator Sites more than outweighs this problem as committed centers recruit to target and on time.
This is certainly true of the sites chosen by Klinikos (both hospital and General Practice) where only Investigators who understand the needs of the Sponsor are considered.
Investigator fees used to be a real problem but more and more Investigators in and outside Europe want to offer their sites as professional centers. To do this they have to charge accordingly resulting in fees becoming more homogeneous across countries.
So, I am keen to know your thoughts and experiences in conducting clinical trials in the UK.
Tags: clinical trials