Clinical Trials and Preclinical Infrastructure Asset Map - Life Sciences

CLINICAL TRIALS AND PRECLINICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ASSET MAP
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Facility (URL)
School of Population & Public Health,
UBC (www.spph.ubc.ca)
Society of Clinical Research Associates,
Inc., Vancouver Chapter (www.socra.org)
Western Regional Training Centre for
Health Services Research (WRTC) (http://
wrtc-hsr.ca/)
Description
Offers a range of courses in epidemiology and healthcare; with several directly
relevant to clinical trials management and clinical trials operations. Masters courses
relevant to clinical trials training include:
• The Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials
• Clinical Epidemiology
• Clinical Decision Analysis
• Clinical Research Methods for Surgical Procedures.
A non-profit, professional organization dedicated to the continuing education and
development of clinical research professionals. It offers courses and workshops in
subjects such as:
• GCP
• Trials management
• SOPs
• Monitoring
• Legal, Ethical and Practical Considerations in Protecting Human Research Participants.
A Western Canadian collaborative initiative that supports the postgraduate training
of applied health services researchers across disciplines, sectors, and institutions.
Relevant courses include:
• Health Care Research Methods
• Epidemiology of Health Care.
Funding Sources for Clinical Research
During the past five years (2005/6 to 2009/10) B.C. conducted over 2,100 clinical trials, excluding
investigator-initiated studies 15 . The level of financial support for these trials was available for 83% of the
studies and amounted to more than $100M. Funds were received from industry, governments, patient
groups, and other not-for-profit organizations, with sponsor data available for 95% of studies.
Industry sponsored 78% of the trials and supplied 62% of the funding (Figures 3 and 4). The most
important government sponsor was the Canadian federal government’s Canadian Institutes of Health
Research (Canada’s equivalent of the U.K.’s Medical Research Council or the U.S. National Institutes of
Health [NIH]), which provided over three-quarters of government funding. Although governments provided
33% of funds (Figure 3), such funds covered just 9% of the projects as they included national bulk
funding for the CIHR Canadian HIV Trials Network (Figure 4).
15
All clinical trial numerical data in this report are based only on industry-, government-, and not-for-profit-sponsored trials. Investigator-initiated
trials have not been included.