The General Clinical Research Center, created in 1969 and funded by the NIH, currently has 60 trials running, about a quarter of them industry sponsored, reported its director, David Brown. He expects industry's portion to increase. Along with providing resources for clinical study, it's mission includes fostering collaboration between basic and clinical science and encouraging a corps of expert clinical researchers. In the future, Brown plans to increase the breadth of the center's research, increase its use of ambulatory patients and beds in other facilities, improve training of clinical investigators, work more closely with the U's magnetic resonance facility, and develop a mass spectrometry lab and a cell propagation facility. Brown also said he plans to improve the efficiency of protocol processing and review.
SPA now has a team of four grant administrators who specialize in nothing but industry sponsors.
Wink also reported that SPA will try parallel processing of contracts. Each company has a little different approach to things. These are bilateral contracts, not standard NIH proposals that we can move very quickly. That's a tremendous institutional commitment. On the other hand, Keane argued that some of the changes investigators have suggested are not possible, for practical, legal, or moral reasons.