Opening Back Up: When Will Investigator Meetings Resume?

The announcement by the CDC on May 13th indicated that vaccinated consumers could fully resume activities that you did prior to the pandemic.  Personally, I was able to secure my Pfizer vaccines in March from a daily overflow of excess doses at the Kaiser Health System here in Colorado.  I had little reaction to the vaccine and would encourage others to get vaccinated.  

It is gratifying to be a part of an industry that is making such a difference in consumers lives around the globe.  The expedited development and clinical trial process for COVID vaccines illustrated that there is an opportunity to speed the timeline for new drug discoveries.  Pro-ficiency is poised to help sponsors efficiently and effectively conduct clinical trials.

With travel slowly opening back up, the question is when will investigator meetings resume?   We recently asked over 1350 investigators in one of our trials whether investigator meetings were preferred over our simulation training.  Almost 90% of the investigators indicated that our simulation training approach was on par or better than investigator meetings.  That could have a profound impact on the on-going cost and speed of clinical trials.

The sponsor for the above clinical trial was thrilled by this feedback from investigators.  It provided them new flexibility in launching the rollout process for their next clinical trial.   

One new option available to sponsors might be the hybrid approach.  The simulation training could be leveraged as a tool to assess where the investigators might struggle in the execution of a clinical trial.  The in-person investigator meeting could be shortened to only those high-risk areas.  The simulation training could also make the in-person investigator meetings optional for those where the time away from clinical practice is a challenge.

Pro-ficiency has also started examining the 10% that prefer investigator meetings.  Is there a way to create more connections with the sponsor via Podcasts?  Live Stream events?

As travel starts to open back up, Pro-ficiency provides sponsors the opportunity to leverage our simulation training platform to better meet the needs of investigators.