• The physician’s clinical experience – Has he/she treated this indication in the clinic for several years?  How many patients does he/she regularly see with this indication?
• Staff experience – Do other staff members have experience with studies in this indication? If yes, make sure to emphasize that the physician will be working very closely with these staff members.
• Community relationships – Will the physician be working with any experienced doctors in the community?
• Site experience – Has your site consistently performed well on other studies?  Sponsors/CROs may be more willing to work with sites with a proven track record, even if the physician is new.

Also consider listing the new physician as a sub-investigator on all studies you are currently running. This will show sponsors/CROs that the new physician is involved in research, and will help you sell your case. Even though this may sound like a lot of work, remember that every PI has to conduct his or her first study sometime, so it is possible!

A: This is a very unfortunate thing, but it is true that there is a lot of turnover at the CRO level. The best thing to do is to follow your contacts! If you have a great relationship with someone at one company and they move to a new one, try to find out where they went. LinkedIn is a great place to follow contacts. If you’ve built a strong relationship with someone, chances are you can contact that person at their new company and you’ll now have a great contact somewhere new.

A: It depends on how long it has been, but depending on the company you may need to start as if you are reaching out for the first time. Try to find new contacts, develop new relationships, and make yourself known to the new people at the company. When you do get in touch with the new contacts, make sure to mention that you previously worked with the company. Even if the people you worked with are no longer there, discussing certain studies the company worked on and you did well on can go a long way.

Depending on the size of the company, mentioning your previous contacts may be a good idea, as well. If the company is smaller, they may know the person you were previously in touch with.  Ultimately, you will need to develop relationships with the new people as you would with any new company.

A: At BTC Network, we use an online platform to keep track of our contacts. We set tasks that act as reminders for when we should follow up with a company or check in with a contact. However, we have seen sites do this successfully in several ways. Organized Excel documents or Google spreadsheets can also serve the same function. As long as you keep detailed notes on your interactions with each contact or company, you can develop a system that works well for your site and will remind you when to check back in.

A: Yes, but not necessarily very much. Most of the studies I have seen over the last few years have come from relationships we have built with contacts at different companies, and very few from being listed in CRO databases. Many of the larger CROs are also developing partnership programs, and for these they are only going to the sites and networks they have relationships with. Many times, CROs will exhaust these sites and networks first before going to their databases.