Get Who You Want, Not Who They Have: Why Multitherapeutic Resources Aren't Always The Answer

Chief medical officers looking for outsourcing services on a study are often fed lines from large CROs on how they can provide individuals with multitherapeutic backgrounds. These industry giants are supposedly poised to handle a variety of highly specialized areas of study, but in reality, the benefit of a multitherapeutic background is exaggerated. Studies involving oncology, neurodegenerative diseases, orphan and rare disease, etc. are all uniquely challenging, and being effective in one area does not mean you can do them all. If we put the technical expertise aside for a moment -  anyone who has been in this industry long enough knows that quality work comes from people who share attributes of excellence, and an understanding and appreciation that the work they are doing involves a scientific experiment on a human. Studies are more likely to succeed when the people working on them have a true passion for the subject. So why do we roll the dice and let CROs tell us that their pool of “multitherapeutic” specialists are going to make our studies a success?