Seventh Entry: A Sneak peek

For these last two weeks, I decided to focus my posts on experience relating to the research work and how my time in NYC has helped me come to terms with the path I hope to walk. In fact, I enrolled into the Cornell BME program with a clear plan of where my life was headed and what it would look like in a series of five years milestones. After successfully completing my PhD, I hoped to start a career in Pharma working in R&D, managing various aspects of drug discovery and re-purposing. However, working in the Transplant program here, I found a very important niche of the Pharma industry I would like to focus on. That is Clinical trial planning and data analysis. The idea came to me after the conversations I had with my direct supervisor. As she introduced me to the department and gave access to their daily meetings, I got a first hand experience to the discussion which goes on between Pharmaceutical companies and Hospital staff when implementing clinical studies aimed at assessing the efficacy and safety of specific formulations.  

The exchange brought to light the fact that there is a disconnect between how clinical trials are planned by Pharmaceutical companies and how hospital professional conduct their daily care. For example, the metrics given by Pharmaceutical reps in assessing disease progression were either textbook ideas or very limited. The clinical staff kept updating the metrics and proposing additional diagnostic tests as the discussion went on. Although the exchange was fruitful in laying out a more applicable plan for conducting the study, it clearly pushed its completion back a couple of months due to the unforeseen variables unaccounted for during the planning on the Pharma side of the table. The experience opened my eyes to very important aspect of the drug development and commercialization process I had never paid much attention to. 

Clearly there is a lot to be done in planning better clinical trials and streamlining the process. This is in itself an opportunity I would not have had a chance to uncover had I not participated in the Summer Immersion experience. Now, I am paying a lot more attention to how Pharmaceutical companies plan their clinical trials and the composition, background and experience of the team in charge of the process. What I hope to learn is where the disconnect originates and how with my PhD training and some additional advanced work I could fill the gap between industrial planning and actual medical practice.