Clinical Trials
The Bottom Line
BBC
4.6 • 606 Ratings
🗓️ 22 July 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The extraordinary success of the creation of vaccines for Covid-19 has made the business of clinical trials look simple. But appearances can be deceptive and it usually takes many years and costs hundreds of millions of pounds to bring a new drug, therapy or medical device successfully to market.
Evan Davis and his guests discuss how the economics of commercial clinical trials now look for companies in the light of such a disruptive event as the pandemic. How far is greater collaboration - with start-ups partnering with big pharma and research companies - changing the way in which trials operate? And will new tech developments - like the greater, tailored use of Artificial Intelligence, digital data and advanced statistical techniques - make the process cheaper and quicker - while compromising neither safety nor patient confidentiality?
Those taking part are: Nuala Murphy of the executive team at Icon plc, a Dublin-based clinical research organisation which last year worked with Pfizer/BioNTech on their Covid-19 vaccine; Houman Ashrafian, managing partner of the biotech team at SVHealth Investors, a venture capital firm with offices in London and Boston; and Avideh Nazeri, vice-president in the UK for clinical development, medical and regulatory affairs at the Danish-headquartered integrated pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk.
Editor Hugh Levinson
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.2 | Hello and welcome to the programme. |
| 0:07.6 | Now, in this series, we've been thinking about life beyond the pandemic, |
| 0:11.0 | from the future of cash to signs of an economic revival in the suburbs, |
| 0:15.7 | to the transition to a net zero carbon world. |
| 0:19.0 | Today, we're back to COVID, disease, science and health because our topic |
| 0:23.7 | is the business of clinical trials. Now, COVID has proven the power of trials. It took less than |
| 0:29.9 | 300 days for one of the vaccines to go from being an idea in a lab to being ready for administering |
| 0:35.7 | into your arm and mind. We've seen how to make things happen |
| 0:39.3 | fast, but at the same time, of course, COVID has barged into the ordinary business of medical |
| 0:44.3 | trials, pushing other important work out the way. So let us look at how this business works, |
| 0:50.5 | how it's changing, and where it fits into the pharmaceutical ecosystem. And let's meet my |
| 0:55.7 | three guests who are in the business. And first, Dr. Neula Murphy, a ICON PLC, which is a Dublin-based |
| 1:01.7 | clinical research organisation. It doesn't make the drugs. It does research, though, founded in 1990, |
| 1:09.0 | and conducts hundreds of clinical trials a year for pharma companies |
| 1:13.1 | and worked indeed with Pfizer-Biontick on their COVID-19 vaccine. |
| 1:17.6 | Nula, just take us through the business model for ICON. |
| 1:21.9 | We're about 40,000 people across the globe. |
| 1:25.3 | And basically what we do is we work with the pharmaceutical industry |
| 1:29.7 | to develop the drugs that they have identified. And in doing so, we conduct feasibility studies. |
| 1:37.0 | We write protocols. We train doctors and nurses. We set up clinics. We monitor patients to ensure that they're really safe as they're participating in |
| 1:46.9 | clinical research. I should probably qualify what we mean by a protocol. A protocol is really a document |
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