Clinical trials are taking longer and becoming more complicated. Just 1 in 5 trials is completed within its planned timeframe.1 These delays cost about $40,000 a day (direct costs) and $500,000 a day in lost revenue.2
To help pharma improve trial efficiency, Amplity pioneered a new role: the Clinical Trial Liaison (CTL). CTLs make sure sites engage, screen, and enroll patients in clinical trials.
Clinical Trial Liaisons are specialized personnel charged with site engagement, trial accelerations, scientific engagement, and insights gathering. They are relationship-builders who liaise between sites’ stakeholders and pharma medical affairs study teams, the contract research organization (CRO) or in-house clinical operations team, and trial managers.
Our CTLs often have advanced degrees and clinical backgrounds. They can be PharmDs, PhDs, MDs, and RNs with specific therapeutic experience and country focus relevant to the program they support.
CTLs are responsible for scientific engagement with investigators; they explain the trial’s goals, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and protocols.
CTLs treat each site like a strategic account. They develop a site plan; become a valued resource for the local team, and share resources across sites, as appropriate.
Their goals are to:
CTLs seek to drive a clinical trial’s success. They are incredible team players with a sense of urgency for responsiveness and results.
CTLs in action: Amplity CTLs helped a rare disease global trial finish 3 months early. In another complex maternal-fetal trial, CTLs helped activate a site naïve to trial participation 2 months early.
Clinical Research Associates (CRAs) focus on trial execution, operations, regulatory elements, and data gathering. Their mission is patient safety and regulatory compliance. Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) are also different from CTLs; both conduct scientific storytelling, but CTLs do more.
A CTL represents a single sponsor and is dedicated to that sponsor’s trial. They know the study design, patient population, and inclusion/exclusion criteria inside-out. Each CTL builds trial-specific relationships with a wide network of stakeholders and sites, appropriately sharing site experiences to foster best practices. Over time, CTLs become a valued resource, ensuring that the sponsor’s trial remains a site priority. That positive brand perception carries over to the pharma sponsor.
Because CTLs firmly grasp study criteria, they help the site stakeholders identify potential patients. Informed and efficient patient recruitment leads to faster data collection.
CTLs speak with healthcare providers (HCPs) frequently about the clinical trial. They’re trained to ask open-ended questions to unearth what’s working well and what needs improvement. They find meaningful insights and drive to the next best action. Their gold lies in the strategic observations they make that get quickly reported back to pharma headquarters staff.
Without CTLs, screen failure rates, protocol amendments, and other obstacles often prevent a trial from reaching its milestones. Delays cost money and slow down the delivery of life-sustaining medicines.
Amplity celebrates 10 years leading outsourced clinical trial liaison teams across the globe, driving valuable site engagement and accelerating clinical trial accrual, driving meaningful results for pharma.
Please visit Amplity Medical for more information on CTLs.
