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Post by unclepaul on Mar 17, 2015 14:21:33 GMT -5
Hey guys, I've been doing studies around the Toronto area since about 2006. Had no problems finding studies for years until now.
Recently, like in the past year or so, I've noticed a lot of clinics here have slowed down on the number of studies they are offering. Pharmamedica has the biggest facility in these parts, and until a year ago it was not uncommon for them to have as many as 4-5 studies available on their website in any given time. Now, suddenly, they've completely dried up... they will frequently go weeks offering no study at all. I talked to some of the screening staff and even they are concerned, some applying for Unemployment Insurance.
Does anyone know what is going on in this part of Canada? I check clinics around the States and they don't seem to have any kind of slowdown similar to here. One person I was talking to said that it is global, clinical research is bypassing trials and/or there are just no more research to be done on generic drugs and such. Not sure if that is what is happening.
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mike
Moderator 
Posts: 334
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Post by mike on Mar 17, 2015 18:22:25 GMT -5
Hm, seems like there would have to be dramatic changes in the pharmaceutical industry for it to really reduce the need for studies to be done.
In my experience, even the clinics that reliably have a lot of studies going sometimes have dry spells where they have little to nothing available for a month or two.
There also seems to often be a bit of volatility when it comes to clinics; reading the posts on this website, there is usually soing going on with one or two clinics where they are 1. moving 2. shutting down, or 3. undergoing some big shake-up like change of ownership/management/staff.
Over about four years when I was living in Austin, Covance closed their clinic there, then Worldwide (formerly Cedra) closed their clinic in Austin, leaving only the one in San Antonio. There were all kinds of hysterical rumors about what was going to happen at Worldwide during the changes. Many of the staff and recruiters were very hard to deal with because morale was crap and a lot of them figured they might be out the door any day.
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Post by unclepaul on Mar 18, 2015 15:00:25 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm hoping this is just a rather abnormally long dry spell. I wouldn't mind having a period of 1-2 months where the pickings are slim. But this has been going on since the beginning of 2014. It's reached a stage now where there is fierce competition with other labrats to sign up for a study before anyone else. A study will be posted in one of the clinics websites and it will be all booked up in a matter of a couple of hours (it used to take a week or so for such a thing to happen).
At least I can rest assured this is not a global epidemic.
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Post by vark on Mar 18, 2015 16:25:16 GMT -5
pharmamedica bought gateway/cetero/pracs in st charles mo. maybe they are moving more of their studies south. you can see my notes on doing a study there last year, on that board. we don't know much about the canadian scene. a few companies around toronto and montreal. i personaly can't get into canada.
what places do you go to up there? do they take usa-ites? how's the pay, food, working conditions etc?
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Post by unclepaul on Mar 18, 2015 19:39:01 GMT -5
In the Toronto area there are Pharmamedica, Lambda, Biopharma, Apotex, Inc Research. Of those 5, Pharmamedica was the biggest one.
I am not familiar with the clinical trial scene in Montreal. I tried signing up for studies in two places a few years ago (the names of which I forget, I think one was Anapharm) but they told me I couldn't use my Ontario Health Card. Though I do encounter some labrat subjects over here who are from Montreal and do studies in both locations.
From what I read about USA clinical trials, it appears you guys over there aren't as strict as we are over here. In every clinic here you MUST be a resident of Canada, or at least show proof that you are. Can an American do studies here? I honestly haven't met many Americans who come here to do studies, but then again I have met an Australian couple but I didn't bother to ask them HOW they were able to get in.
One thing I have noticed over the years is that pay for the studies seems to be slightly getting lower. When I first started in 2006 I was paid $1200 (CDN) for a two period, no return study. Last month a two period no return study was being offered for $900.
I have been told that compared to American clinics, the pay for the studies here isn't quite as good. Probably why I haven't met any American labrats. I mean, why travel all the way here when you have so many other lucrative places to go in your own country? I am sometimes jealous of you Americans as it seems if one state is dry you can simply travel over to the next state and try your luck there. Unfortunately we can't do that here. There just aren't that many cities doing clinical trials with healthy volunteers.
In regards to food, working conditions, state of facilities... I would say Apotex offers the best food, with Pharmamedica coming in second. I'm not sure about Apotex, but Pharmamedica actually cooks their food in their own building. Lambda is notorious for ing their food from restaurants. You get fed a lot of greasy food over there.
Pharmamedica is the cleanest, and most well run facility I have been in. It is also the most comfortable one, and doesn't feel too crowded. They have comformtable couches for subjects to sit in post-dosing, big screen tvs with home-theatre sound system, a reading room *and* a computer room per clinic so there is no shortage of places to hangout if you don't want to chill in the couches or your bunkroom. This place seems to be built with longterm studies in mind. The other clinics feel like they just took an office site and tried to mold them into a clinical research facility. I guess you can surmise from this post that I really like Pharmamedica, heh. My fear is that with this year-long drought they will go out of business and shut down... that is not soing I want to happen as for years they were THE goto place for studies.
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Post by johnjalr on Mar 27, 2015 11:22:16 GMT -5
One issue in Quebec is that Revenue Québec, the provincial tax agency, has compelled inVentiv Health, one of two major pharmaceutical outfits active in the province, to turn over its files. As a result, many people who have done studies at inVentiv (formerly Anapharm/Pharmanet) are being hit with some eye-watering tax bills and penalties -- over $10,000 in at least two verifiable cases. Lab rats who also happened to be on social benefits at the time are being subject to further, harsher penalties for filing fraudulent income claims.
As other Canadians know, we're not taxed when the clinics pay us and I've yet to meet anyone who has volunteered this information to tax authorities. Hopefully this alarming state of affairs won't spread to Ontario any time soon.
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Post by vark on Apr 4, 2015 14:17:42 GMT -5
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