SCRS Announces CLEAR Contract Clauses

Ellicott City, MD – SCRS announced the release of the Common Language Evaluation and Reconciliation (CLEAR) contract clauses for clinical research site contracts in North America. The announcement was made on October 15, 2016 at the Site Solutions Summit in Boca Raton, FL.

As explained in the white paper describing the initiative, “The purpose of CLEAR is to streamline contract negotiations and thereby accelerate site initiations, leading to increased recruitment timeliness and reduced study start-up costs. Improving productivity by reducing cycle times and accelerating clinical research will allow industry to get new treatments in development to patients faster without sacrificing quality. This initiative benefits all the stakeholders within industry-sponsors, CROs and sites-but most importantly patients.”

The CLEAR initiative was done in collaboration with TransCelerate BioPharma, the Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO) and sponsors and CROs that were not members of either organization. “We were driven to action by stories of patients who waited for an opportunity to be on a potentially life-saving drug while a research contract was negotiated. One specific patient who caught our attention is TJ. View TJ’s moving recollection of the realties some of our patients face and our moral responsibility as an industry to address the contract issue,” said Christine Pierre, President of SCRS. “Patients deserve better than waiting for studies to start after taking more than 13 weeks for contracts to be completed, as is the current worldwide average.”

The CLEAR working group will continue to meet and advocate for industry-wide adoption. Additionally, their next goal is finding a way to improve clinical research site contracts beyond North America. The white paper released during the Global Summit is available for complimentary download here.

About SCRS
SCRS is a global trade organization founded in 2012 which represents over 4,000 research sites in 54 countries. SCRS’ mission is to unify the voice of the global clinical research site community for greater site sustainability. SCRS has become an active partner in industry-wide initiatives and dialogues focused on improving the clinical research enterprise. Sites and the companies that sponsor or support the work conducted at clinical research sites will benefit from membership and partnership. Visit MySCRS.org.