For CNS specialists, successful clinical trials are key – and it is crucial to build the best team to drive these, particularly for companies entering the clinic for the first time.
In this video, Paula Doust Alba, CNS & Rare Disease Consultant at Venari Partners' Life Sciences practice, discusses hiring strategy in the CNS space. Watch the video below for Paula's insights on this fascinating topic!
We've seen so many breakthroughs in the CNS space lately, especially in Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. This really just is the fruit of so many years of focus into developing and advancing these therapies.
However, we have seen the presence of so many of these obstacles just innate to the CNS space pop up time and time again. Heterogeneous patient populations and the misalignment between how long it takes us to run these trials versus how long it takes us to actually see these diseases progress, complicate making these clinical trials successful.
Although it is incredibly hard to overcome these obstacles, they really do have tangible consequences. We've seen fast-track approval rejected for certain drugs on the basis of insufficient patient data, for example. We've also seen so much discussion around how effective these drugs are, depending on which endpoints we’re using to measure this.
It goes without saying that these clinical trials are very important to get right for the biotech journey, particularly for companies looking to enter the clinic for the first time, getting the hiring right and getting the right team to drive this is absolutely crucial.
It may be obvious to find the best team in Clinical Operations, Clinical Development and Translational, but for some companies, it might also be beneficial to hire people in more trial-adjacent roles, such as Clinical Innovation and Clinical Strategy. Each clinical trial context is obviously completely different, and hiring really should be taken on a case-by-case basis. It is also clear, however, that it’s such an important part of the biotech journey and one that should be carefully considered when making these decisions.
If you'd like to discuss the best clinical hiring strategy for yourself and your team, please don't hesitate to get in touch!