Thoughts from a Lab Rat

Going through my own issues right now. Just another reminder about the inherent instability that comes with volunteering or at least trying to volunteer full-time. Studies come and go. Money comes and go. It can take 3 days or 3 months to get into a study. The clinics and sponsors are emotionless entities that can’t care about your personal life other than what directly affects the study. They don’t care if your rent is due or your car is being repoed. Anyhoo, being a lab rat is just like being the real animal. Life is full of uncertainties.

Okay, so that’s a bit drastic. But the reality of the situation is that times are tough right now. The prolonged recession is affecting the pharmaceutical industry which in turn affects the research and development which in turn affects the need for volunteers. Will things get better? Yes. This has happened before. The demand for volunteers fluctuates depending on the stages of a particular drug. When drugs first come on the scene, as in first in man, the trials require 6 to 8 subjects per cohort and there are usually 4 to 6 cohorts. As the study progresses, more and more volunteers are required until the study switches over to patient trials which require even more volunteers. Sometimes there are more first in man studies than later stage studies and sometimes it’s the opposite but most times its an even mix.

But it’s so hard right now! I feel all of your pains! Believe me! I live the same life you do. I’m scheduled to check-in to a fantastic study one day and am digging holes in a field for 6 bucks an hour the next. Being a lab rat full time can be rough, I mean rough. With no guarantees of a stipend check, it can be very difficult to plan ahead. Certainly it would be nice if the dedicated volunteers such as us had some more security in our work but with the way the industry works that is not possible.

Things will improve but we have to be patient. There are studies out there. They may not be the highest paying but they all lead towards a better, healthier future for everyone. As I’ve mentioned before, there is risk involved with doing studies. Not only the possibility of uncomfortable side-effects but the reality that nothing is guaranteed as a volunteer. We are all here out of our own freewill and fully understand the risks involved. Sponsors may cancel and postpone studies at the last minute but there is usually a legitimate reason involved. Whether it is restructuring the study because of safety concerns or the FDA steps in, it’s all geared towards keeping clinical research studies as safe as possible. Obviously, there is no way to prevent all problems that come up but that is the whole point of conducting research trials, to make sure that as many side-effects are detected as possible.

So, keep a sharp eye out for studies and don’t panic. While I would recommend being open to other opportunities, don’t count out the future of clinical research.

The sponsor is the company that is sponsoring the study. In most cases, the company is a pharmaceutical company. When you participate in a research study, you will take drugs from major companies you’ve heard of and from smaller companies all over the world that you never knew existed. Companies like Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis and Schering-Plough all use clinics to test their drugs. There are hundreds of other companies you will see as well. Take a look at the wikipedia entries for the above companies and chances are that you may have done a study involving one of their drugs most likely as a reference product or complying drug. When a clinic conducts a study for a sponsor, there will usually be representatives for the sponsor present for the first does of a study and various points throughout the study. You will occasionally see clinic executives giving tours of the facilities while your in-house to potential sponsors. There is typically no interaction between the sponsors and the volunteer research subjects. The sponsor reps are merely there to see that the study is being carried out according to protocol. While you should always be following the rules of the study and the clinic, it is especially important to do so while sponsors are around as THEY are the ones paying you! If they see that the subjects are not following the protocol of the study, they can stop the study and move it to another research clinic in which case the clinic lose business and in turn reduces the amount of studies available to you. So, to wrap things up, the sponsor is the invisible force behind the study and you should respect the sponsor as they not only pay you but are trying to get new drugs into the market place for benefit of countless people in need.