This is facilitated through a dedicated industry manager within each Local Research Network who works to ensure that the NHS can meet the health research needs of industry. The industry manager offers a single point of contact for all services:
Have you ever considered collaborating in a commercial trial but been unable to because of a lack of up-front infrastructure? It’s the classic ‘catch-22’; recruiting patients to a commercial study would enable you to fund a research nurse, facilitator, etc. but you cannot recruit because you don’t have the nurse, facilitator, etc.
We think that one answer is the newly launched Industry Development Fund. If a commercial company is keen to engage you and your site in an NIHR CRN Portfolio study, we may be able to provide a ‘loan’ to ensure that you have the support that you require to make the study a success – up front.
The Executive Group will consider applications each month, getting you up and running very quickly. Once you have commenced your recruitment and the per-patient payments are being made, the loan will be re-payable to the CLRN, to ensure that we can continue to ‘un-block’ this classic barrier to commercial research for more research teams.
To learn more about how this might work for you or to discuss your commercial study contact S.Keates (CEL CLRN Industry Lead) on 020 7882 2064.
