Merck’s Response to SCRS Open Letter to Industry
As a large sponsor in our industry, we are acutely aware of the unprecedented challenges our clinical research site partners are facing with the attrition of experienced staff. We acknowledge that a recent SCRS site survey indicates a 35 to 61 percent turnover rate.
Our company recognizes the importance of supporting clinical research sites while building the next generation of diverse talent as an imperative to maintain the clinical trial ecosystem. We hope to inspire others by sharing some of the ways in which we are investing in these efforts.
We sponsor an extensive R&D internship program each year. In addition, we:
- Continue to build our entry-level program (i.e., no experience required) hiring college graduates into entry-level Clinical Trial Coordinator roles within our operations team.
- Serve as a premier member of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) Partners Advancing in the Clinical Research Workforce (PACRW), a multi-stakeholder consortium supported by sponsors, CROs, investigator sites, academic institutions and regulatory agencies, targeting workforce growth and diversity. Recently, ACRP released “Ready, Set, Clinical Research!,”™ a flexible toolkit that is being used across our teams to raise awareness of clinical research as a profession to high school, college and other student groups.
- Provide access to ACRP Clinical Research Coordinator Core Competency training for clinical research sites located in historically underrepresented communities and ACRP’s entry-level training for students interested in the clinical research profession. See press release.
- Participate in the Employer OneTen program, a coalition of industry leaders committed to cultivating opportunities for non-degreed Black talent in the United States. Thus far, we have hired 21 people to begin a career in clinical trial operations in our data management team. Our company is on track to hire 100 people from underrepresented groups in the Philadelphia area by the end of 2023.
- Participate in the Education Committee of the Society for Clinical Research Sites (SCRS), which provides guidance and oversight of all SCRS educational activities and identifies additional training program opportunities specifically for research sites.
Through our vendor partners, we also continue to provide site Study Coordinator resource support to help mitigate enrollment gaps and focus on community outreach and patient recruitment.
We recognize that there is much work to be done in creating the next generation of clinical researchers but there is strength in numbers. That’s why we, along with our industry colleagues, must continue to invest, support and share best practices on how to build and diversify the clinical research workforce.
As always, our company is open to collaborating with sites and others in the industry to help in the development of future talent.
