Our "Meet the Expert" series introduces you to our team of experts around the world. This "behind the curtain" view will help you get to know who we are on a professional and personal level, and highlight how our colleagues work together on our higher purpose to improve patient health and safety throughout the complete product lifecycle.
Meet Kimberly Futch, Director, Clinical Operations Strategy
What do you do at ProPharma? How does your role support improving the health and safety of patients?
As the Director of Clinical Operations Strategy, I primarily focus on evaluating new proposals and assess how ProPharma may best successfully deliver the study to patients with outstanding unmet medical needs. In addition, we provide a thorough recommendation of operational tactics to the client researching the asset to ensure streamlined conduct and focused efficiency on collecting critical data. This involves epidemiology research, an assessment of similar trials from the clinical trial registry as well as the use of our AI platforms to best predict realistic timelines for delivery with an optimal country mix.
What is one lesson you’ve learned in this industry that has most helped you?
Never stop asking "why." The basis of why we do research is first and foremost to deliver new treatment options to patients. The following "why" questions enable us to successfully deliver these needs including:
- why is the eligibility criteria appropriate?
- why are we capturing the named endpoints?
- why is the schedule of assessments suitable for the patient population?
- why have we selected these regions/countries/sites for study conduct?
- why would these patients benefit from this specific trial?
When there are clear answers to the why, it inherently leads to a higher potential for success. In each step of the way, if the question of why something is being done, then a clear path for meeting patient needs is more likely to be met.
What do you like best about working with clients?
The best part about working with clients for me is the opportunity to learn from each of them. Every client has a unique critical thought process for developing a clinical development plan with their focus on bringing a new drug to market. The most exciting part about working in an RCO like ProPharma is to ingest those learnings and begin to apply them to our approach of study delivery. We have the opportunity of not only conducting one trial and having lessons learned, but an arsenal of trials to learn from and to generate a true best way of operationalizing trials. Larger clients, mid-size clients and smaller clients all bring such an important perspective to trial delivery that having the opportunity to combine them is a highlight of my current job.
What is a current trend you’re seeing in the industry and how does it impact our clients and patients?
The application of Personalized Medicine has continued to evolve the way patients are treated, especially in the oncology field. Tailoring medical treatments to patients based on their specific genetic make-up, lifestyles and environmental factors has created an opportunity to treat patients and not just the disease. Using genomics to better understand the underlying mechanisms of the disease allows researchers and physicians to better predict what type of treatments may work most effectively. Combining the knowledge we have of the patient’s disease and contributing factors with the use of AI tools has led to much more promising patient outcomes.
What is unique about our culture at ProPharma?
ProPharma conducts all activities with a focus on patient health as a top priority. This is woven into the highest ethical standards for conducting trials, the collaboration of internal teams as well as partnerships with our Sponsors and vendors, our continuous learning and training initiatives as well as employee well-being. It not only feels like a team that works together bringing a myriad of functional experts together, but this team becomes a village or support, encouragement and friendship. Rather than working in silos, ProPharma excels at cross-pollination of functional groups to provide one cohesive "family" joining forces to brainstorm about efficiencies, generate new ways of working and generate new ways of working.
