Career Opportunities In Clinical Drug Research

This book is an easy-to-follow handbook that introduces readers to entry-level clinical job opportunities and explains how to qualify for them, with a particular emphasis on how to gain clinical experience that a hiring manager will accept. Each chapter covers one of the clinical specialties involved in conducting pharmaceutical clinical trials: for example, clinical research associate, clinical data manager, biostatistician, and clinical drug safety specialist. The chapters are written as personalized narratives, allowing the reader to follow the daily work of a clinical specialist as he or she supports a clinical study and interacts with the other study team members. The descriptions of these specialists are composite profiles that incorporate the true-to-life experiences of typical clinical study team members. A list of career options available to workers after mastering their entry-level clinical position, as well as a tool box for those seeking a position, are included. Career Opportunities in Clinical Drug Research also gives readers a brief overview of research and development in the pharmaceutical industry and explains how a typical clinical study is conducted.

An essential guide for students in the life sciences, established researchers, and career counselors, this resource features discussions of job security, future trends, and potential career paths. Even those already working in the industry will find helpful information on how to take advantage of opportunities within their own companies and elsewhere.

Transforming biological discoveries into medical treatment calls for a cadre of health professionals skilled in patient-oriented research. Yet many factors discourage talented persons from choosing clinical research as a profession. This new volume lays out the problem in detail, with specific recommendations to the federal government, the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, professional organizations, the health care industry, organized medicine, and the nation's universities and academic health centers. The volume explores How clinical research is conducted, what human resources are available, and what research opportunities lie ahead. Why health professionals become discouraged about clinical research. How the educational system has failed in this area and what programs stand out as models. How funding affects the supply of researchers. This practical book will be of immediate interest to public and private agencies funding research, research administrators, medical educators, health professionals, and those pursuing a career in clinical investigation.

An ideal health care system relies on efficiently generating timely, accurate evidence to deliver on its promise of diminishing the divide between clinical practice and research. There are growing indications, however, that the current health care system and the clinical research that guides medical decisions in the United States falls far short of this vision. The process of generating medical evidence through clinical trials in the United States is expensive and lengthy, includes a number of regulatory hurdles, and is based on a limited infrastructure. The link between clinical research and medical progress is also frequently misunderstood or unsupported by both patients and providers. The focus of clinical research changes as diseases emerge and new treatments create cures for old conditions. As diseases evolve, the ultimate goal remains to speed new and improved medical treatments to patients throughout the world. To keep pace with rapidly changing health care demands, clinical research resources need to be organized and on hand to address the numerous health care questions that continually emerge. Improving the overall capacity of the clinical research enterprise will depend on ensuring that there is an adequate infrastructure in place to support the investigators who conduct research, the patients with real diseases who volunteer to participate in experimental research, and the institutions that organize and carry out the trials. To address these issues and better understand the current state of clinical research in the United States, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) Forum on Drug Discovery, Development, and Translation held a 2-day workshop entitled Transforming Clinical Research in the United States. The workshop, summarized in this volume, laid the foundation for a broader initiative of the Forum addressing different aspects of clinical research. Future Forum plans include further examining regulatory, administrative, and structural barriers to the effective conduct of clinical research; developing a vision for a stable, continuously funded clinical research infrastructure in the United States; and considering strategies and collaborative activities to facilitate more robust public engagement in the clinical research enterprise.

In recent years, many factors have combined to change the operating environment of the international pharmaceutical industry leading to greater specialisation and sophistication. This new edition will give an update of the different opportunities in drug discovery and development and the scientific, medical or other specialist training needed to accomplish them. The scope of this edition has been broadened to encompass all major roles, including marketing and sales.

Improving and Accelerating Therapeutic Development for Nervous System Disorders is the summary of a workshop convened by the IOM Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders to examine opportunities to accelerate early phases of drug development for nervous system drug discovery. Workshop participants discussed challenges in neuroscience research for enabling faster entry of potential treatments into first-in-human trials, explored how new and emerging tools and technologies may improve the efficiency of research, and considered mechanisms to facilitate a more effective and efficient development pipeline. There are several challenges to the current drug development pipeline for nervous system disorders. The fundamental etiology and pathophysiology of many nervous system disorders are unknown and the brain is inaccessible to study, making it difficult to develop accurate models. Patient heterogeneity is high, disease pathology can occur years to decades before becoming clinically apparent, and diagnostic and treatment biomarkers are lacking. In addition, the lack of validated targets, limitations related to the predictive validity of animal models - the extent to which the model predicts clinical efficacy - and regulatory barriers can also impede translation and drug development for nervous system disorders. Improving and Accelerating Therapeutic Development for Nervous System Disorders identifies avenues for moving directly from cellular models to human trials, minimizing the need for animal models to test efficacy, and discusses the potential benefits and risks of such an approach. This report is a timely discussion of opportunities to improve early drug development with a focus toward preclinical trials.

Written by dedicated and active professionals from different areas of the pharmaceutical, biomedical, and medtech sectors, this book provides information on job and career opportunities in various life sciences industries. It also contains useful tips to launch your own startup. The pharmaceutical, biomedical and medical technology sectors offer a wide range of employment opportunities to talented and motivated young graduates. However, many of these employment prospects are not well known to early career scientists, who concentrate primarily on the scientific and academic content of their fields of interest. The book is divided into five parts: Part 1 provides an academic perspective that focuses on the specific preparation required in the final years of study to embark on a successful career in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries. In Part 2, industry experts discuss employment possibilities all along the drug or product life cycle, from discovery research and development to commercialisation. Part 3 follows, highlighting opportunities in support functions such as regulatory affairs or quality assurance. Part 4 focuses on additional opportunities in the wider biomedical sector, while Part 5 contains practical tips and training opportunities for entering the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries. In the epilogue, the authors reflect on this fascinating field and its career prospects. The book offers a multidisciplinary perspective on career opportunities in the pharmaceutical and biomedical industry to a wide range of students and young life scientists.

The development and application of regulatory science - which FDA has defined as the science of developing new tools, standards, and approaches to assess the safety, efficacy, quality, and performance of FDA-regulated products - calls for a well-trained, scientifically engaged, and motivated workforce. FDA faces challenges in retaining regulatory scientists and providing them with opportunities for professional development. In the private sector, advancement of innovative regulatory science in drug development has not always been clearly defined, well coordinated, or connected to the needs of the agency. As a follow-up to a 2010 workshop, the IOM held a workshop on September 20-21, 2011, to provide a format for establishing a specific agenda to implement the vision and principles relating to a regulatory science workforce and disciplinary infrastructure as discussed in the 2010 workshop.