Managing Clinical Trials

Discover clinical trial management, biotech and pharma resources on document-sharing web sites

We’ve recently begun using two web sites that allow users to share conference presentations, seminar materials, educational tools, research data and more.  The first, SlideShare, is like YouTube for PowerPoint and PDF presentations; the second, Docstoc, allows users to share PowerPoint as well as Excel, Word and other document types.

We’ve uploaded several of our popular Insider Abstracts so that industry professionals, students and researchers around the world can discover, download and share them with colleagues.  For example, here is our “The Complete Phase 1b” interview with Dr. Dan Von Hoff; you can scroll through all of the slides below.  To download it, just click through to the SlideShare web site.

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: pre-clinical medelis)

Here's a second abstract that features Dr. James Gourzis discussing patient safety in clinical trials:

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: patientsafety clinicalresearch)

We used this presentation to promote our new Medelis Europe division during the recent BioPartnering Europe seminar in London:

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: cro medelis)

These services are excellent tools for conferences, seminars, researchers, companies and far-flung groups to share and discover new data and educational materials.  We’ll continue to publish our abstracts via these services and encourage you to add us to your network and share your own materials as well.

On SlideShare, you’ll find our Insider Abstracts at www.slideshare.net/medelis, and we’ve started a group at www.slideshare.net/group/biotech-pharma.  Our Docstoc account is www.docstoc.com/profile/oncologycro.

Using YouTube to recruit for clinical trials

Mark Senak, author of the informative Eye on FDA blog, wrote an interesting post yesterday about the NIH’s YouTube channel.  They set up the channel a year ago to help promote clinical trial participation. 

As Mark explains, "YouTube presents a great way for patients who have participated to talk to patients that might be interested, and for the information to be passed virally to people who might be curious about participating in a clinical trial."

He then posts several of the oncology clinical trial videos he found in the channel and plans to promote them on his (much more popular) Eye on FDA YouTube channel.  Here are three videos he chose:

Read the full Eye on FDA post here.

Can the internet fuel drug development?

What happens when some cancer patients become frustrated with their treatment options?  They search for a cure on their own. Some raise money to build awareness; others donate to further research.

Dr. Jay Tenenbaum, an e-commerce pioneer who is battling melanoma that spread to his liver, took a different approach:  he created a company to allow patients to discover new drugs with the help of the internet. 

CollabRx builds and operates "virtual biotechs" for people seeking cures on their own.  The CollabRx platform connects researchers to one another and to a network of scientific services.  Wealthy individuals, foundations and patient groups can join in to financially support specific research activities.  The system encourages researchers to share information and collaborate, going against the grain of the traditional scientific process.

While it’s unclear whether the concept will work, CollabRx highlights how the internet is starting to affect drug development.  Some of our sponsors are starting to recognize how the internet can help them recruit patients for their trials.  While pharmaceutical companies may be slow to pick up on the power of the web, patients seem to be a few steps ahead.

Amy Dockser Marcus provides a detailed look at CollabRx in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal.  She also provides excellent tips for patients who want to make a difference in the search for a cure.