The following is a message from Clinical Trials Ontario. For the full announcement, click here.
New position paper from Ontario’s Leadership Table for Clinical Trials
Ontario leads the country in clinical trials activity and is ranked #1 in active clinical trials per capita among G7 nations. But there is more we can do to strengthen our status as a competitive jurisdiction internationally, and the province’s hospital and industry leaders have come together to do just that by forming the Ontario Leadership Table for Clinical Trials.
The Ontario Leadership Table is comprised of executive leaders from research-intensive hospitals in Ontario and world-leading pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials in Ontario. The additional engagement of three provincial ministries (Colleges and Universities, Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade and Health) as observers on the Ontario Leadership Table represents the holistic collaboration across these stakeholders.
The Ontario Leadership Table is focused on bringing more clinical trial opportunities to Ontario and new therapies to patients as quickly as possible by shortening clinical trial start-up times and reducing the effort required to execute the clinical trial start-up process. As a first step, the Ontario Leadership Table published a new position paper outlining their top priorities for transformative change in the clinical trials environment.
For their top priority, members of the Ontario Leadership Table have set an ambitious and global leading target of 45 days for new study activations in sites in Ontario to help address the issue of timely access to clinical trials. To achieve this goal, Clinical Trials Ontario (CTO), in collaboration with the Ontario Leadership Table will improve CTO’s QuickSTART program which was originally conceived to reduce clinical trial activation times through enhanced transparency, process efficiencies, defined timelines, and a bespoke digital platform.
Other priorities include finding collaborative solutions to improve trial recruitment, expand health data access, and improve access to therapies and trials in rare diseases. Over the next year, the Ontario Leadership Table will guide and inform strategies to support educating and advocating for strategic policies and investments that will create the environment necessary to maintain a world-class environment for clinical trials conduct in the province.