30 Most Innovative Companies of the Year 2024
Business Fortune
All industries, including drug research and healthcare, are undergoing disruption due to new technologies. While technological advances have not yet made a significant impact on clinical trials, they have the potential to do so through the use of innovative outcomes, increased patient involvement, reduced patient burden, and enhanced trial management.
Clinical trials play a crucial role in developing and approving new medications and medical therapies. The significance of Clinical Trial Technology is growing due to continuous technological advancements, shaping the way trials are conducted.
With healthcare innovating rapidly on all fronts, it is crucial to ensure that all-important clinical trials keep pace. This is where the Medical Research Network excels.
As an innovative market leader in patient- and site-centric solutions and clinical trial delivery, the Medical Research Network offers integrated in-home, at-site, and digital trial solutions, enabling the medical research community to conduct more flexible, efficient, and accessible clinical trials.
The Business Fortune spoke to Stuart Redding, Co-founder and CEO of Medical Research Network (MRN). Below are the excerpts from the conversation that ensued.
Q. What was the series of events that led to the founding of the Medical Research Network (MRN)?
MRN was created in 2006 with the goal of using home nursing to provide protocol-defined visits to patients in clinical trials at their own homes. This was a pioneering step towards a patient-focused approach in clinical trials by bringing recruitment and treatment to the community. The MRN founding team consisted of experienced trialists who came from pharmaceutical and contract research organization (CRO) backgrounds. We understood the difficulties involved in conducting clinical trials and were eager to explore new approaches.
Q. Why did you start a company that helps simplify the complexities of today’s clinical trial environment?
Clinical trials often struggle to finish on time due to difficulties in recruiting and retaining patients. The industry has a history of failing to provide effective solutions to address this problem. Protocols are notoriously complex, with sponsors trying to maximize their value while making them undeliverable for the sites and unappealing for the patients.
Offering patients the choice to have multiple visits at home, work, or school makes the trial less burdensome and a more feasible treatment option. This also means the site can see patients less often, which reduces their resource burden and allows them to help patients who live far away. When patients receive trials at home, their trial fatigue decreases, and they are more likely to continue participating in the study.
Many sites struggle to recruit, or participate at all, due to resource constraints, so as well as deploying nurses to patients at home, MRN also places nurses into sites.
Q. How has the Medical Research Network grown since its founding? What part of innovation and the company’s innovative approach to simplifying clinical trial services contributed to the company’s growth?
MRN has grown rapidly with an average compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 29% year after year; this has been driven by MRN’s geographic expansion, the industry’s acceptance of community based trial models, and MRN’s position as a high quality market leader in this space.
We have continued to grow and improve by expanding our services, using advanced technology to manage visits conducted in the home and collect patient data.
Q. What sets Medical Research Network apart from other integrated trial service providers?
MRN was founded by experts with extensive experience in the pharmaceutical and CRO industries. The company is dedicated to providing innovative services tailored to the specific needs of pharmaceutical and CRO companies.
We manage all of our services centrally, which is truly unique. Each project has a core project manager who serves as the main contact. MRN is responsible for training, deploying, managing, and quality checking all nurses in the field, whether they are employed directly by MRN or by a contracted vendor. All visits are managed on a global technology platform, which gives us control and scalability. All our patient data is collected on our own eSource platform, both at home and on site.
Q. Can you talk about Medical Research Network’s unique and innovative Home Trial services and MRN Technologies?
MRN’s core Home Trial Support service brings protocol-defined clinical trial visits directly to patients. HTS conducts trials at patients’ homes or other remote locations to make it easier for patients to participate, regardless of their location. This eliminates travel difficulties and logistical constraints. This patient-centric approach customizes trial schedules to fit patients’ and families’ needs, enhancing convenience and comfort.
Home Trial Support addresses common participation challenges, including work commitments and childcare needs, which increase patient engagement and retention rates. Visiting participants at home or another location improves trial efficiency which also benefits sponsors and sites.
Our network of healthcare professionals around the world performs various activities at patients’ homes. These activities include training patients, assessing vital signs, administering study drugs, and collecting biological samples.
MRN focuses on quality and data security by thoroughly screening and training healthcare professionals and having achieved ISO 27001 and ISO 9001:2015 certifications and follow ICH GCP and GDPR standards.
MRN Technologies supports these services with eClinical software systems that are approved by regulators. These systems allow for easy integration of data from site and home visits. This integration enhances trial flexibility, efficiency, and data quality.
Q. How important is innovation for the company? What steps has the company taken to promote and nurture innovation within its team?
Innovation is central to the MRN’s success and growth. As a pioneer in patient-centric trials, we have consistently leveraged innovation to address industry challenges and drive expansion. The company’s new services bring trials directly to patients’ homes, making access easier through our site network, focusing on convenience, and reducing logistical barriers.
We foster innovation through strategic investments and technology. The 2023 acquisition of a technology platform highlights our dedication to integrating advanced solutions into our service offerings. MRN’s eClinical software systems facilitate seamless data integration from both site and home visits, improving trial efficiency and data quality.
The company promotes innovation internally with an experienced management team and skilled staff, focusing on training and quality assurance. MRN’s approach to innovation—through technology, expertise, and strategic growth—underpins our ability to provide cutting-edge solutions while maintaining our leadership position in the clinical trials market.
Q. What are Medical Research Network’s plans for the future?
MRN is concentrating on creating new and varied services to provide the best platform for our customers and ensure patients can access new treatments. We are now focused on creating our own network of sites to provide a fully managed patient recruitment solution to the industry. We currently have 55 sites on board and plan to increase that to over 100 by the end of the year, covering North America and Europe. Our focus is on trial naïve and less experienced sites with access to untapped patient populations to ensure delivery and diversity that no other network can match.
Q. Would you like us to highlight something important happening in your company that we may have missed asking about?
We have recently introduced an Integrated Trial Services solution to complement the Site Network expansion. This solution combines all our offerings to provide the best clinical trial delivery solution. It includes access to trial sites with diverse populations, supported by MRN’s resources and training. We can also use our eSource platform to gather data at the trial site and in participants’ homes. As part of this solution, we also QC/monitor a percentage of the data for quality control, but we can also expand that to a complete monitoring service as well as offer data management capability.
Meet the Co-Founder and CEO
Stuart Redding is the co-founder and CEO of Medical Research Network. He is also a prominent leader in the clinical trials industry.
Stuart has over 30 years’ experience in the clinical research sector, with experience spanning many disciplines within sponsor and CRO organizations, including data management, clinical operations, project management, business development, proposals, and marketing.
