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In March, 2025, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) released a “Reflection paper on use of real-world data (RWD) in non-interventional studies (NIS) to generate real-world evidence (RWE) for regulatory purposes” as a guidance for stakeholders on quality planning, conduct and analysis of NISs that intend to use RWD to generate RWE.
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In November 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to the sponsor as a result of a BioResearch Monitoring Program (BIMO) inspection which observed objectionable conditions. The warning letter cited two violations of the Title 21 CFR.
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In December 2024, following the release of the 2024 revision of the Declaration of Helsinki (DoH), US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) staff shared the FDA’s perspective on what their role was in the development of the 2024 DoH and how it may impact FDA procedures. The DoH is intended to guide clinical research involving human participants that is often used as the foundation for other guidelines such as the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH) Good Clinical Practice (GCP).
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In October 2024, the World Medical Association (WMA) announced the adoption of the 2024 revision of the Declaration of Helsinki (DoH) during the 75th WMA General Assembly in Helsinki, Finland, the same location where the Declaration was initially adopted 60 years prior.
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On September 27, 2024, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a warning letter to an Institutional Review Board (IRB) as a result of a (BIMO) inspection from July of 2023. BIMO inspections evaluate compliance with of FDA regulatory requirements, in this case, title 21 CFR Parts 50, protection of human subject, and 56, Intuitional Review Boards.
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What does ‘C’ stand for?
Do you care whether the actions you took to try to stop an issue from recurring were completed? Does it matter if they actually worked? Of course! Deciding on actions is only part way to fixing a problem. We need to complete the actions and make sure they were effective. That's why there is the ‘C’ step in the DIGR-ACT® solution, where C stands for ‘Check’.
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We are excited to announce Sandra “SAM” Sather’s most recent contribution to CenterWatch, “The CRC’s Guide to Coordinating Clinical Research, Fourth Edition,” will soon be released. The guidebook engages the learner by providing relevant information backed with regulatory sources, frequently asked Q&A, case studies, tools like logs and checklists, and sample forms and SOPs.
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a draft guidance “Enhancing the Diversity of Clinical Trial Populations - Eligibility Criteria, Enrollment Practices, and Trial Designs”. It is the position of the FDA to enroll subjects who are the target audience for the investigational product once approved. Certain populations are underrepresented in clinical trials, even though they are part of the target audience. The draft guidance outlines methods the sponsor can use to support more diverse enrollment that more accurately reflects the target population, in accordance with requirements in the FDA Reauthorization Act of 2017 (FDARA).
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What does ‘A’ stand for?
Don't waste time on root cause analysis, at least not if you won’t use the results! Proper root cause analysis takes effort and resources, and you need to use the output to determine actions to try to stop the issue recurring. This is the ‘A’ step of the DIGR-ACT® solution. Having dug into the issue, you now need to ‘Act’ on what you found.
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Clinical trials have become increasingly complex since the ICH E8 guideline on “General Considerations for Clinical Trials” was finalized in 1997. The draft revision is in Step 2b and available for public comment, and there are some interesting changes to note. Specifically, there is a greater emphasis on patient centricity, design of trials with quality in mind, and risk management. The overlying theme is fit-for-purpose quality as an essential consideration for study design. The revision is part of the Good Clinical Practice (GCP) Renovation initiative. Previously, the ICH E6 GCP R2 addendum was finalized in 2016.
