Anyone have contacts involved in medicine or RCTs (possibly at a UNI)?

[Rummers]

Hi,

I'm in need of running a smallish randomised controlled trial (RCT) for my business that would fall under food supplements / nutrition / (and somewhat) medicine. I've created what I think would be a good framework for an RCT study design, but I've not done this before and would like to find someone / a team of people to work with. I have lots of questions, and I'm not even sure the RCT would be valid if I ran it myself - I'm guessing it needs an independent administrator to collect and review the data.

I'd really like to work with a university as I imagine it could be part of a live assignment, but I don't have any contacts. I've reached out to a few universities general contact points in the last few months, but I haven't heard back. I'm based in the Midlands, but I don't believe geographic location makes too much difference as long as it's UK-based.

Does anyone have any contacts they'd be willing to point in my direction to help out?

Thanks for any help you can offer, this would be such an amazing thing if I could get this sorted.

 

[PikeyPriest]

Does the trial involve anything new medication or food wise? If so it will get complicated as will need ethics approval involving lots of pharmacological and safety information.

A key issue with trials is sponsorship. The sponsor of the trial assumes liability for complications (and therefore needs appropriate insurance which universities will have) and the integrity of the study and its data. There is a cost to the institution in terms of setup/audit/personnel time working on it.

Why would a university take on the liability of a trial that only benefits your company? There has to be a reason why they would agree - they are paid/keep Intellectual property/really ground breaking work with possibility of future follow up collaboration..etc

Is this trial something that could benefit medicine/health and cause real change? What are your company prepared to pay for the research?

*edit- I’m setting up a medical device trial at present and the hospital are charging £1000 setup fee, but it is an exciting device that is the first of its kind. The hospital and university can charge significantly more.
The contracts can also limit what your company can use the data results for - ie no advertising, which is usually the reason the company want the research performed if they aren’t fully funding the trial.

 

[Diddums]

This will not end well here.


Good luck though.

 

[Maccy]

Yeh, not here I'm afraid.