Scientific Coordination Area

Scientific Coordination Area
Clinical Research Support Unit (CRSU) - Academic CRO

Scientific Coordination Area

Alejandro Piris Giménez
Head of Area
Head of Area Alejandro Piris Giménez Senior Project Managers Neus Bayó, Elena Chavarria, Javier Gonzalo, Josep Maria Miquel, Sandra Porta, Isabel Vallvé, Xenia Villalobos Junior Project Managers Berta Colldeforns, Eric Delgado, Nacho Sánchez

Area Summary:

VHIO’s Scientific Coordination Area has consolidated itself as a Unit to support VHIO’s Direction, Management, and research groups for the development of research proposals and programs, monitoring and follow up. We also provide support to our various Task Forces, that strengthen and promote multidisciplinary connectivity and spur joint research programs with other oncology teams at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Vall d'Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus.

Our managerial responsibilities include both financial and scientific support, as well as the implementation of institutional actions to various areas including education, ethics & regulatory issues, scientific dissemination, consortia and coordinated research. These cover competitive grant application processes, dissemination of national and international funding opportunities for our researchers, assessment of the preparation and writing of competitive project proposals, as well as the monitoring and coordination of awarded research projects.

We aim to optimize opportunities for the internationalization of groups through a personalized plan for VHIO groups, centralize ideas from taskforces and match selected research priorities with competitive calls, as well as support highly innovative technological project proposals to increase VHIO’s success rate in terms of Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI), and H2020 and Horizon Europe framework approved projects as coordinators and partners through the proactive search and evaluation of opportunities, as well as potentiate our area’s organizational structure and optimize our project management processes.

Strategic goals

  • Identify and promote new research opportunities involving academic and industry partners.
  • Write, coordinate and manage scientific proposals.
  • Manage, monitor and follow up institutional programs.
  • Promote intramural research through education, networking and driving force.

Highlights

  • In 2019, VHIO’s success rate was 30%, out of 207 grant (competitive) applications.
  • This year, our Unit managed more than 9 million EUR obtained from competitive funds.
  • Our research support to VHIO groups has been recognized through our co-authorship of two publications: How I treat gastric adenocarcinoma (Alsina M et al. ESMO Open. 2019); New clinical trial designs in the era of precision medicine (Garralda E et al. Mol Oncol. 2019).
  • We co-launched, together with VHIO’s Educational Committee, our VHIO-”la Caixa” Foundation VHIO Scientific Seminars Series.
  • Our Unit co-leads major EU consortia, including MoTriColor (H2020), COLOSSUS (H2020), the Basket of Baskets trial (Cancer Core Europe – CCE), and participates in numerous project boards and work packages.
  • We have provided support to our Scientific Direction through the management of scientific data, documents and actions required for the elaboration and development of research proposals and projects at VHIO.

Clinical Research Support Unit (CRSU) - Academic CRO

CRS Unit Head Susana Muñoz Lead CRA and Project Manager Marta González Clinical Research Associates Darío López, Júlia Molina, Lídia Piquet, Amaya González

Area Summary:

Our academic Contract Research Organization (CRO) has extensive experience in conducting sponsored trials and investigator-initiated trials. The CRO offers a complete package of start-to-end management services required to perform clinical trials and studies. Thanks to our multidisciplinary team, we can operate as a full service CRO in clinical studies from phase I to IV studies. We also offer guidance to all researchers and sponsors on how to achieve the best experimental design and logistical advice in order to maximize their resources. With a team of 6 professionals, our CRO provides medical writing support, full regulatory activities, monitoring, project management, e-CRF creation, statistics, drug management, insurance management, and pharmacovigilance activities. We seek to expand the our Unit’s structure with a clinical project manager and a CRA to be able to even more effectively manage current and future clinical trials, optimize CRO digital tools to allow for working remotely, as well as continue to bring out the best in each team member to enhance our newly created Facility.

Strategic goals

  • Clinical project management support to awarded R&D projects (European/Pharma funded), academic Oncology Clinical Trials lead by our Medical Oncologists and Clinical Investigators at VHIO and the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital (HUVH), Vall d'Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus.
  • Academic CRO for Investigator initiated trials.

Highlights

  • In 2019 our academic CRO successfully managed a number of major projects including COMBAT, TOPIC, IRONMAN, MONEO, among others. Most of these are led the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital (HUVH) oncology teams, at the Medical Oncology Department headed by Josep Tabernero, VHIO’s Director.
  • During 2019, we successfully met the the regulatory requirements of all of our trials (first submissions and amendments).
  • Our CRA team were able to monitor more than 150 patients in several hospitals throughout Spain.
  • We managed clinical trials drug requirements in more than 25 national hospitals.
  • We have also evidenced sufficient benefits to cover CRO activities for non-funded academic trials.