Top 4 financial challenges faced by every clinical trial
Launching a new drug on the market is an expensive and long process. It can take up to 10 – 15 years from the discovery to its release and cost around 1,3 billion USD, showing different reports. The proper management of this costly and time-consuming process is crucial for the success of every clinical trial and budget management is one of the key factors for it. Here we present to you the four major challenges that, according to us, every clinical trial process faces.
Challenge #1 – The complexity of financial relations
Each clinical trial process includes a number of different stakeholders, which are all bound by complex financial relationships. Tracking the cash flows between all stakeholders is a tough process. Starting from the sponsor budget and when we get funding from the sponsor – it becomes a really tough task to distribute all these amounts across multiple stakeholders and to have some accurate budget planning for the future. Usually, the stakeholders that take part in the process are the CROs, hospitals, centers for clinical research, SMOs, and different subcontractors: PI, site coordinator, lab, pharmacy, etc.
Each of these stakeholders has their own expectations for payments management, cost distribution, taking commissions, and different financial relationships which take place. “If these relationships are structured well this could make the life of the people, who manage the process much easier”, explains Ivailo Ivanov, the CTO of BGO Software, the visionary behind the Clinicubes CTMS.
Challenge #2 Decentralised information
The second challenge is decentralised information. The key information is often scattered across different media. There could be budget files in excel spreadsheets, on different computers, on different media, stored in emails, or even on paper. This makes it difficult to track and find the recent version of the document, or any information regarding who has changed it and when. Sometimes, it could be physically impossible to find the right information on time. Using specialised software makes this process easier because you have a single source of truth stored in one place (in the cloud).
Challenge #3 Evaluating new opportunities
Whenever a new project opportunity arises, we need to make quick decisions about whether it makes sense to execute such a project. We need to evaluate whether we are going to have a profit, and do we have the financial resources in the organisation and the subcontractors, needed to execute it successfully. Sometimes we need to make quick decisions, sometimes there is a lack of information and lack of time to see the different scenarios. So, the proper evaluation of this opportunity could reduce the financial risk.
Challenge #4 Unclear future payments
The fourth challenge which every clinical trial process faces is the uncleared future payments. “When we enter the execution phase and the payments start running month by month, it’s crucial to know which payments are due, when to expect them, when to expect the payments from the sponsor, when our subcontractors should be paid, and on which activities”, explains Ivailo Ivanov.
All these payments can be tracked by an automated clinical trial management system, which has automated reminders, real-time dashboards, and other functionalities, which can assist the coordinators to do this more efficiently. And this is not the only benefit of the automated CTMS such as Clinicubes. It can handle all the above-mentioned challenges and make the clinical trial budget management process easier, fluent and all the future cash flow predictable.
If you want to learn more about how to optimise your budget with Clinicubes CTMS, check the video of our latest webinar here.
If you want to share the challenges that you have faced and find a solution contact us.
