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Home » Partnership to Bolster Trials in Low Resource Regions Kicks Off
Partnership to Bolster Trials in Low Resource Regions Kicks Off
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August 28, 2023
With a mission of spurring strong randomized controlled trials, a quartet of trial networks have teamed up in a new program to encourage and support the use of key scientific and ethical principles in research conducted in Latin America, Southeast Asia and South Africa.
The Good Trials Prism initiative, coordinated by the Good Clinical Trials Collaborative (GCTC), a nonprofit focused on promoting new guidance to support better randomized controlled trials globally, will be carried out by four networks:
- ADVANCing Clinical Evidence in Infectious Diseases, a network of more than 30 hospitals in Asia launched this year;
- The Africa Health Research Institute, an interdisciplinary South African research institute focused on HIV, tuberculosis and related diseases;
- The Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, a large research unit dealing with infectious diseases in Southeast Asia; and
- The Global Health Network, a comprehensive health research group that works in Asia, Africa and Latin America to build research capacity and efficiency.
The program’s focus is to encourage and drive the adoption of five scientific and ethical principles that are integral to good randomized trials. These principles, laid out in guidance published by GCTC, advise that randomized trials be:
- Designed to produce scientifically sound answers to relevant questions;
- Respectful of the rights, safety and well-being of participants;
- Collaborative and transparent;
- Designed appropriately for the context; and
- Able to manage quality effectively and efficiently.
“By promoting the unique qualities of randomized controlled trials and the evidence they produce, the collaboration aims to support regional research ecosystems to prioritize collaborative, informative and efficient research responses to public health challenges,” says a statement from GCTC.
According to the collaborative, the Prism is the first initiative that aims to apply these principles across a varied range of geographic settings and public health challenges.
As part of that focus, the program will provide free educational and training materials designed to support the understanding and application of the principles. The materials also will be available to countries outside of the Prism’s scope through open access websites. The initiative will also devote resources to policy, advocacy, training, communications and capacity-bolstering in its regions of interest.
Nick Medhurst, team lead of the GCTC, tells CenterWatch Weekly the program expects to deliver a multimedia course by early 2024, as well as animated explainers, posters and infographics. It will also host collaborative events, such as webinars, workshops and training sessions, to foster knowledge-sharing and cross-learning, both within the four participating networks and across partner networks.
Martin Landray, CEO of Protas, senior lead of the GCTC and co-chief investigator of the renowned COVID-19 RECOVERY Trial, believes the Prism “is a fantastic platform to further our mission to promote and support high-quality clinical trials globally.”
“By working together to apply the principles of a good trial as outlined in our guidance and now in WHO’s draft guidance, this partnership seeks to strengthen clinical trial systems and help overcome barriers in generating reliable evidence in low-resource settings and across the world,” Landray said.
“Empowering researchers and healthcare workers to conduct high-quality clinical trials in every healthcare setting with guidance, tools and support” will help address “the burden of diseases on health systems and save lives,” adds Trudie Lang, head of the Global Health Network.
“This partnership is critical to ensure such resources are developed and implemented in contextually relevant ways and that all stakeholders may contribute to and benefit from these efforts,” Lang said.
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