Our Blog
Blog Post
RMAT Designation…What is it and is it Right for Your Therapeutic Product?
As research teams develop more cellular and gene therapy products for the treatment of a wide array of medical conditions, the need for custom nonclinical and clinical programs required to support market approval of products that are based on human cells, tissues, or HCT/P will rise. And for RMAT designated products, the study designs may be substantially different from more traditional IND programs.
Blog Post
Antiviral Products in the pre-IND Phase
Productive pre-IND interactions with FDA are important to the success of any drug development program, including infectious disease product development. The Pre-IND Consultation Program through the Office of Infectious Disease (OID), one of 27 review divisions within the Office of New Drugs, provides opportunities for makers of infectious disease products to engage with FDA by facilitating early communications between the Division of Antivirals or the Division of Anti-Infectives within OID and sponsors/investigators of potential new therapeutics – these products include drugs and therapeutic biologics for the treatment of bacterial, fungal, and viral infections (including SARS-CoV-2 infection).
Blog Post
Considerations for Implementing Decentralized Clinical Trials
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the implementation of decentralized (also referred to as virtual, remote, or hybrid) solutions for clinical trials. In addition to keeping your clinical trials on-track during the pandemic, decentralized solutions can often provide added benefits, including an improved patient experience by increasing engagement and reducing patient burden. We will discuss some considerations for successfully implementing decentralized solutions.
Blog Post
COVID-19 Treatment Development: Updates and Recent FDA Guidance
The FDA continues to release additional information and update their website as the COVID-19 pandemic continues and both regulatory professionals and drug developers react to the potential for novel and repurposed products to treat COVID-19. This blog post is the latest installment in a series of COVID-19 related blog posts and updates information provided in a recent webinar.
Blog Post
Key Questions for the Effective Implementation of eCOAs in your Clinical Trial
With the industry-wide push towards patient-centricity, electronic clinical outcome assessments (eCOAs) have become a more widely used strategy to streamline patient data collection, provide real-time access to data for review and monitoring, enhance patient engagement, and improve the integrity and accuracy of clinical studies. Rho answers some commonly asked questions about eCOAs.
Blog Post
The Sunsetting of Rare Pediatric Disease Designation
As with other incentive programs, FDA created the Rare Pediatric Disease (RPD) designation to encourage drug development in products with questionable financial viability; in this case, the treatment of certain rare pediatric diseases. One of the main benefits of RPD designation is the potential to receive priority review vouchers, which can be used to obtain priority review on a subsequent human drug or biologic application, should the product with RPD designation be approved.
Blog Post
Considerations When Starting a Vaccine Study
For over 10 years, Rho has worked in vaccine research and is currently 1 of 5 contract research organizations in the BARDA Medical Countermeasures Clinical Studies Network (MCM-CSN) that designs and conducts clinical studies needed to develop drugs, vaccines, and diagnostic tests that help protect public health. Based on our experience, we understand the risks, challenges, and solutions needed to operationalize a vaccine trial.
Blog Post
Drug Shortages During the COVID-19 Pandemic
As the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations increases, another growing threat to the US healthcare system’s ability to respond to the pandemic is emerging: shortages of essential drugs diverted from patients with their primary indications to treat patients infected with COVID-19.
Blog Post
Maintaining Trial Integrity During COVID-19: Some Statistical Rules of Thumb
The COVID-19 pandemic is having a substantial impact on many ongoing clinical studies in all phases of product development. Numerous difficult decisions are being made and steps are actively being taken to ensure the safe execution, or future resumption, of ongoing studies. While patient safety is paramount and should drive all study conduct related decisions, many of these decisions can impact the interpretability of estimates of efficacy at study conclusion.
Blog Post
COVID-19 FDA Response: Site Management and Monitoring
In this post, the focus is on site management and monitoring changes during COVID-19. With a focus on participant safety and trial data quality and integrity, the FDA expectation is that sponsors will identify alternative approaches to on-site monitoring and document these in updates to the Clinical Monitoring Plan.