Clinical Research Consortium Launched By NIH

The National Institutes of Health has announced the launch of a national consortium focused on transforming how clinical research is conducted in the hopes of providing patients with new treatments more quickly and effectively.

The Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA)Consortium is designed to deal with perceived obstacles in the current approach to conducting clinical research: fragmented training programs, difficulty in recruiting and retaining clinical and translational researchers, increasing regulatory burden and increasing overhead costs, and inadequate informatics, according to a statement by the NIH.

Twelve institutions have received funding thus far, with the goal of having about 60 linked institutions by 2012. By then, expected funding should reach approximately $500 million dollars per year.

For information online, visit www.ncrr.nih.gov/clinicaldiscipline.asp