Perception And Reality At CROs

By Bruce Rehlaender, Ph.D., principal of formulation development, PharmaDirections

It’s hard to avoid CROs these days. From two-person virtual companies to the largest multinationals, everyone is outsourcing, and like everything else, this trend has its pluses and minuses. For those new to the game, we thought we would address some perceptions and realities we have found in working with pharmaceutical CROs.

Perception: Once you sign the dotted line, the project is in the CRO’s court.
Every CRO brags about its project management abilities and claims it can take your project and run with it. In reality, this is very seldom the case. Without attention from outside, slippage of timelines and scientific misunderstandings tend to be the rule rather than the exception. CRO scientists and project managers are usually doing their best, but they have a lot of other things going on and may not understand your project as well as you thought they did.