Clinical Trial Leader

All US locations

About This Role

The Clinical Trial Leader (CTL) is accountable for the set-up, execution, and delivery of their assigned trial(s) and contributes to the delivery of the client’s pipeline through accurate planning and efficient execution of trials that bring speed and value to participating subjects and sites. The CTL provides leadership and direction to the trial team (core and extended team members) and is accountable for the overall success and delivery of their assigned clinical trial according to defined milestones and key performance indicators. They are responsible for steering and directing clinical trial activities, including patient and site engagement, direct communication, and interaction with multiple internal and external stakeholders (e.g., investigative sites) and team members on a global, multi-country, or regional basis. The CTL manages the planning, implementation, and tracking of the clinical trial process as well as risk mitigation. The CTL serves as a proactive member of the clinical delivery team, liaising closely with Clinical Trial Managers (CTMs) on all study-related issues. As leader of the Trial Team, the CTL communicates trial status to stakeholders, escalating issues as appropriate.

Responsibilities

Trial Preparation

• Accountable for the accurate planning and operational feasibility of trial timelines; oversight of trial preparation to ensure trial team members are aligned and on track.
• Supports development of trial-level documents owned by other functions (e.g., Statistics, Data Management, Study Physician, Medical Writing, Site Monitoring).
• Verifies and provides input into the country allocation and oversees trial feasibility.
• Accountable for development and implementation of trial-level engagement plans, recruitment planning, and risk mitigation.
• Leads development of core trial and patient-facing documents.
• Integrates patient/site-level feedback during document development and ensures trials are designed with a focus on patient value.
• Ensures activities are frontloaded where possible at the trial level and cascaded to the country level to facilitate efficiencies and leverage speed.
• Oversees outsourcing of vendor services in conjunction with other functions; supports identification of vendors, vendor selection, and development of vendor scope of work.
• Works with functional partners to ensure all required trial processes are in place to meet trial delivery milestones (e.g., clinical quality monitoring, safety monitoring and reporting, investigational medicinal product, trial budget, site monitoring).
• Aligns and supports team members in timely responses to questions from Regulatory Authority/Ethics Committee and other external stakeholders.
• Provides/supports provision of appropriate study-specific and standardized non-trial-specific trial team training for internal and external partners.

Trial Conduct

• Maintains oversight during clinical trial conduct, including adherence to GCP and all global and local regulatory requirements; compliance with SOPs and continuous risk monitoring/mitigation.
• In collaboration with other functions, ensures budget oversight, including support of regular clinical quality monitoring, Safety Management Committee (SMC)/Data Management Committee (DMC) management, and safety reporting.
• Prepares and implements amendments of core documents, including training material updates/retraining as needed.
• Supports authority/ethics responses to requests as applicable.
• Maintains oversight of outsourcing of vendor services (including central lab) in conjunction with other functions.
• Monitors progress of patient recruitment and accrual of endpoints and proactively updates and actions contingencies throughout trial conduct.
• For early clinical trials, coordinates and harmonizes Innovation Unit tasks in a trial (e.g., biomarker sampling, genomics, sub-studies).

Trial Closeout and Reporting

• In collaboration with other functions, ensures timely cleaning and delivery of clinical trial data.
• Coordinates and supports the Trial Medical Writer in providing the Clinical Trial Report (CTR).
• Responsible for timely, complete, and compliant archiving of all relevant global documents in the TMF, including all required documents from vendors.
• Supports results/documents disclosure of global registries.
• May support publication of trial data.

Contributions to Trial Strategy

• Supports preparation and execution of clinical trials, including: (i) planning of trial milestones; (ii) contributing operational and scientific expertise; and (iii) considering and planning for regulatory interactions.
• Supports Clinical Development and Operations Lead (CDOL) to ensure issues are raised to the client’s Evidence team for timely action or mitigation.
• Responsible for the Trial Feasibility activities that define key aspects of a Clinical Trial Protocol (CTP).

Leadership Competencies

• Creates an environment that inspires, motivates, and empowers colleagues and promotes the client’s Clinical Development and Operations (CD&O) identity, contributing to acceleration of clinical development timelines and value creation for patients.
• Fosters a learning culture in the client’s CD&O regions by encouraging continuous learning, sharing best practices, and learning from failures.
• Embraces innovative technologies, as well as creates and maintains a culture that drives empowerment, smart risk-taking, and the client’s CD&O identity.

Compliance with Standards

• Comply with required training curriculum.
• Complete timesheets accurately as required.
• Submit expense reports as required.
• Update CV as required.
• Maintain a working knowledge of and comply with Parexel processes, ICH-GCPs, and other applicable requirements.

Requirements

• Strong clinical trial project management experience.
• In-depth understanding of project management with an emphasis on teamwork to promote high-performance teams.
• Experience in Therapeutic Areas relevant to the client pipeline is desirable.
• Understanding of major regulations (US FDA, EMA, and PMDA).
• Familiarity with guidelines and standard of care is desirable.
• Cross-geographical experience; working in a multi-cultural environment with a strong understanding of corporate culture and cross-cultural dynamics.
• Strengths in mentoring/coaching.
• Demonstrated competencies in Agility, Accountability, and Intrapreneurship: fast decision-making, flexibility, ownership, outcome-based thinking, results orientation, and smart risk-taking.

Skills

• Strong Communication Skills: Articulates and aligns business strategy/plan on an ongoing basis, ensuring alignment between words and action. Demonstrates active listening skills and cultural awareness.
• Scientific and Operational Expertise: Demonstrates scientific and therapeutic knowledge and operational expertise across all aspects of clinical trial planning and execution. Dimensions of trial complexity include protocol, patients, sites, countries, vendors.
• Leadership and Influence: Demonstrates skills and capabilities in addressing complex situations, confidently setting direction for teams. Demonstrates leadership behaviors of supporting, connecting, and empowering teams, providing future direction, demonstrating visionary and innovative thinking, and inspiring teams to achieve a common goal. Executes activities with a clear aim to deliver value to patients.
• Strategic Mindset: Strategic and visionary thinker who is future-focused, creative, courageous, and able to navigate through ambiguity. Integrates study strategy with the overall TA portfolio. Embraces cross-functional initiatives, applying innovative learnings. Is results-oriented with a global mindset using analytical thinking to provide risk-balanced solutions.
• Coordination and Oversight: Collaborative leader who demonstrates skills and capabilities in setting priorities, managing the pace of activities, and efficient usage of resources.
• Project Management: Plans effectively, setting priorities, and defining actions. Makes effective use of resources and proactively strives for transparency and clarity to accomplish business deliverables. Translates complex situations to actionable parts. Anticipates and resolves challenges and translates learnings to new projects. Takes smart risks.

Qualifications

Requires a university degree (e.g., bachelor’s or advanced degree). Major focus: Biomedical Life Sciences.