More than 1,300 global investigative sites across 15 countries rate the best biopharmaceutical companies with which to work in a new survey conducted by CenterWatch, a leading publisher and provider of global clinical trials information. The survey results were released today in the March issue of The CenterWatch Monthly publication.

Investigative sites rated sponsor companies on more than three dozen individual relationship attributes. The 10 highest-ranking companies were Novo Nordisk, Servier, Otsuka, Teva, Boehringer Ingelheim, Allergan, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), AstraZeneca, Janssen and Eli Lilly.

Investigators have raised their expectations for sponsor performance. In response, sponsor companies have made strengthening their relationships with investigative sites a top priority in recent years and have created a wide range of initiatives designed to incorporate investigator viewpoints into improving clinical development processes and easing site burdens. Gaps remain though. Areas identified in the survey as vitally in need of change included easily accessible staff, good overall protocol design and well-trained CRAs.

“While sponsors continually recognize the importance of building and maintaining strong investigative site relationships and implementing initiatives to bridge the gaps, this bi-annual survey offers valuable insights to sponsors on how to further improve specific areas considered important to sites in the overall clinical development process,” said Joan Chambers, COO of CenterWatch. “Ultimately, the investigative site is the key connection to the patient. There is the critical need to nurture and continuously build a strong site-sponsor relationship.”

The CenterWatch Global Investigative Site Relationship Survey was first launched in 1997. This year’s survey was conducted online from October 2016 to January 2017, and asked principal investigators, sub-investigators and study coordinators to rate the sponsors with whom they worked during the past two years on 40 relationship attributes, from study planning to innovation, and to rate the importance of those attributes as well. Key changes to the survey included new attributes that addressed issues related to patient-centric protocol design and risk-based monitoring. A total of 25 sponsors with sufficient sample sizes were profiled in the analysis.

Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies interested in receiving a comprehensive report on their company-specific results of the 2017 survey can contact Joan Chambers at (617) 948-5110 or joan.chambers@centerwatch.com. Custom reports provide company-specific results compared with industry benchmarks and past survey findings. To read the feature article showcasing aggregate results and insights, subscribe to The CenterWatch Monthly or purchase the March issue at http://store.centerwatch.com/. On April 1, CenterWatch will release the second part of its 2017 global survey, in which investigative sites rate the best contract research organizations (CROs) with which to work.