NAVREF and VA Partnership Helps Propel COVID-19 Trial in Less Than a Week

As an outcome of the Access to Clinical Trials (ACT) for Veterans initiative, the PRP increases veterans’ access to high-quality clinical trials and streamlines the start-up of new, innovative trials to give Veterans access to world-class health solutions. By improving infrastructure, the PRP is helping agencies and organizations to partner more rapidly on critical research trials, specifically targeting the enhanced inclusion of Veterans.

“With critical support from our Champion Circle sponsor, Cohen Veterans Bioscience, and other partners, we have helped establish a program with VA ORD where dedicated facilitators will interface with industry sponsors and coordinate with VA-affiliated non-profit research corporations (NPCs) and VA medical center research services,” says Rick Starrs, CEO, NAVREF. “Moving forward, this will expedite study start-up and the evaluation of a new generation of therapeutics for our Veterans and other patients.”

One example of the effectiveness of the launch of the PRP is that it allowed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to partner with the VA on its COVID-19 trial, which was rapidly activated in under a week.

“Veterans have made many sacrifices for our country and deserve access to best-in-class healthcare. In a short time, the new Partnered Research Program has already demonstrated that it can enhance the VA’s research capacity and position the VA as a leading clinical studies partner,” says Magali Haas, MD, PhD, CEO of CVB. “A testament to this accelerated implementation is the VA’s new partnership with NIAID on a critically important COVID-19 trial.”

As architects of the PRP, NAVREF and ORD will help streamline start-up activities and provide other efficiencies for VA multi-site clinical trials. In doing so, they hope to encourage more industry sponsors and enable Veterans to participate in clinical trials to give them access to new therapeutic interventions.

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