How Technologies and New Models Are Changing Clinical Research

Sibel Blau, MD, medical director at Northwest Medical Specialties, and founding member and president/CEO of the Quality Cancer Care Alliance Network and Exigent Research, provides insights into the current state of clinical research in the oncology community and how technologies and new models are impacting this area. Her presentation was part of the panel titled “Reimagining Clinical Trials in the Community Setting” at the 2023 Clinical Pathways Congress + Cancer Care Business Exchange.

Transcript:

Sibel Blau: I am Sibel Blau. I'm a medical oncologist, hematologist. I'm also the president and CEO of Quality Cancer Care Alliance Network and Exigent Research.

What are you the most excited about to share with attendees?

Dr Blau: I think from my perspective for this meeting, connecting all the areas of community oncology from pathways to clinical research. I'm very excited about sharing my experience with Exigent Research, the organization that we started with 27 community oncology practices throughout the country.

How can providers increase the reach and access of their clinical trials for future patients?

Dr Blau: If we're talking about community oncology, where most of the patients are treated, we do need some innovation and some flexibility for patients to be able to access clinical trials.

The innovation is using technology, the flexibility is to be able to bring more resources to the research field. And in our private practices, independent oncology practices, most doctors are so busy that they are not involved or interested in research. Not because they don't like doing clinical research, most oncologists that graduate from fellowship, they have this enthusiasm about clinical research, but when it comes to their busy lives, it gets lost.

So at Exigent Research, one of our goals is to increase the awareness and education and training for the PIs and sub-Is as well as their clinical research coordinators and all the research staff. So that's one area. The other area to reduce their administrative burden, to be able to provide more clinical trials to the sites where patients can put on trials without having excessive work that it takes to do a good quality research. And of course, as a network, when you have the scale, you have access to better and more trials that patients can benefit from.

What does the current state of clinical research look like in the oncology community?

Dr Blau: The current state of clinical trials in the community oncology is very minimal. And it's partly because there's just not enough resources. It's also because doctors are not interested in taking part in clinical research. And also economically it is just not a priority because you have to put some investment into doing a good clinical research. So in the community oncology, even in the best practices, the clinical research is not where it needs to be.

How are technologies and new models changing clinical research?

Dr Blau: Having a data access to all patients in a network system like Exigent Research and being able to use technology to screen and also do feasibility on these patients and then monitor the patients and let the physicians know that there is a potential candidate for their patients. That is one of the keys actually to success in clinical research. So without proper technology and research, the research will never go where it needs to be in community oncology because of all the economical and logistical problems I mentioned earlier.

Is there anything else you would like to expand upon?

Dr Blau: I'd like to tell you about Exigent Research, which is our organization that consists of 27 practices throughout the US. We share a data warehouse and technology to be able to screen these patients and also provide other resources, including central management of the sites to a degree, depending on the site. And then we are also very much into educating and training the whole staff, including the PIs and sub-Is. Therefore, we're trying to create an ecosystem where not only we have access to more trials, and more great trials, but be able to really enroll patients in those trials. So I'm very excited about that.