How will the Coalition compete with private clinical research organizations (CROs)?
RC: Clinical research organizations are generally for-profit businesses that were paid directly by the pharmaceutical firms to go out and recruit individuals to participate in clinical trials and develop varying degrees of support for that participation. CROs, in my estimation, have clearly made an impact on the clinical trials scene on a nationwide level. There s no CRO that has the expertise in cancer that exists in the cancer clinical cooperative group structure. We have centralized data management, we audit all of our records. It s not been viewed this way, but we have the best cancer clinical trials support program in the country and I can t imagine that a CRO could ever reach that quality level. There s tremendous competition to enter patients on to clinical trials from a whole variety of sponsorships. There s no question that challenge is out there. PND: With declining federal funding of clinical research and reportedly handsome reimbursement incentives offered through CROs to r
