Innovative approaches with rigorous quality standards are essential for delivering value in clinical development. In today’s fast-paced and growing healthcare industry, the need for efficient, high-quality clinical research solutions has never been more critical. This philosophy addresses a significant gap in the market, where traditional models often fall short in balancing cost, speed and quality.
Tiago Silva, the Managing Director of CLINERGY Health Research, embodies this transformative approach. With over 20 years of experience in clinical development, Tiago has initiated more than 100 strategic drug development projects across the globe. CLINERGY Health Research was founded out of a desire to revolutionize the clinical research outsourcing industry by focusing on high-quality deliverables and innovative methodologies that larger CROs often struggle to provide. The company is dedicated to accelerating health innovation, ensuring that patients gain access to valuable medicines more quickly.
Let’s dive into our conversation with Tiago Silva to explore how Clinergy Health Research is redefining the CRO industry, overcoming industry challenges, and staying at the forefront of innovation and technology!
Can you please share with our readers a brief overview of your professional background?
I am a Pharm D. Even though I started my career in Pharmaceutical QA and Process Validation, I started working in clinical research early on. For the past 20 years I have been working in clinical development, delivering more than 100 strategic drug development projects for large pharmaceutical companies and small Biotech’s, helping patients having access to value adding medicines and health innovation across Europe, ASIA, and North/South America.
As the Managing Director of Clinergy Health Research, can you explain the mission and vision of the company?
Our mission “Helping innovation reach patients faster” says it all about our purpose of acting as a catalyst towards health innovation and I have learned over the years that this can only be achieved by taking a different and unique approach towards service provision.
Clinergy was born out of a personal frustration with the way the clinical/regulatory outsourcing market has been evolving over the years. During my time within the pharma industry, I have had the chance to contract CROs all over the globe and, more often than not, I would get sub-optimal results and expectations would be rarely met or exceeded. It was clear that the business and management models behind large CROs were not working in terms of cost vs benefit and, on the other hand, smaller and cheaper CROs would frequently not deliver high quality.
At Clinergy, we have a very different approach to how we manage the company, making sure that 1) we do not stretch our resources, 2) we focus on services we know large CROs fail to deliver value frequently and 3) we select the right clients and projects that we believe will get high deliverables from our work. Also, we focus on indicators other than revenue and profit as key drivers as a way to achieve our mission and long-term excellence.
Can you share with us some of the unique challenges you have faced in clinical development and management and how you have overcome them?
I believe some of the biggest challenges in clinical development these days are related to making sure the whole clinical operations chain (research sites, bub-contractors, CROs) hold high standards during times of high pressure for higher and higher financial returns. Over the years we have been particularly focused on developing very effect oversight capabilities so that our partners and sub-contractors have the same view we have towards high excellence and quality, and this has been making a difference on the way we deliver our services.
As a leader in the healthcare industry, how do you ensure that Clinergy Health Research stays at the forefront of innovation and technology?
Every new or existing client that partner with us receives much more value for every dollar invested compared to our competitors and that is related to the way our culture shapes efficiencies within our processes and tools which we have running in the background of our operations, so that our staff can focus on providing high knowledge/experienced-based value rather than spending time on low-value inefficient activities. That allows us to provide much quicker and assertive site feasibility services, or risk-based/central monitoring services that being major cost and time efficiencies to our clients.
How do you approach risk management and quality control in clinical trials, and what role does it play in the success of the company?
I believe one of the biggest challenges in the recent history of clinical development is related to the lack of speed many pharma companies and CROs have to truly embed a risk-based approach within their working culture. There are a lot of opportunities to accelerate clinical development being lost now due to the mental barriers associated with changing the status quo. My role has been focused on making sure all our processes, tools and services are planned and conducted with such an approach in mind and the result is a way more efficient service delivery standard to our clients. Risk-based Quality Assurance is at the heart of what we do, from site/study feasibility to start-up and conduct of clinical trials to clinical/regulatory consultancy.
Can you share with us a significant milestone or achievement that you are particularly proud of during your tenure as Managing Director of Clinergy Health Research?
I would say that keeping our purpose and unique business management mindset alive over the years has been a major achievement. Driving the company’s direction and processes based on client´s satisfaction and high-quality output rather than on revenue and profitability (which often means squeezing workforce and reducing quality deliverables) is no easy task, but it is an obvious choice when our view on the long run.
What advice do you have for aspiring professionals looking to make a career in clinical development and management?
Differentiate yourself by using all the amazing tools available to anyone these days to deliver better knowledge/services within your company. Do not wait for our company to push you. There is so much information available everywhere but only a few professionals really go the extra mile to extend their knowledge and connect the dots.
Where do you see Clinergy Health Research in the next 5 years and what role do you see yourself playing in that vision?
We will continue to provide high quality output to small and mediumlan-sized companies who need a truly trusted partner which sees their clients’ projects as their own. As we move towards a more complex and precision-based medicine, the implementation of AI and other technology-based solutions will certainly take us to an even higher level in terms of adding value to our clients, helping us achieve our mission.
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