For the next time you are putting together a case for a new clinical trial, below are some impactful bullet points to liven-up your presentation and help convince funders. They are taken from our recent report Economic evaluation of investigator-initiated clinical trials conducted by networks.
The report was published in mid 2017 by ACTA and the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health. It included a series of case studies used to evaluate the health and economic benefits of trials conducted by clinical trials networks.
ACTA is using the report to demonstrate the value of clinical trials to a range of stakeholders including NHMRC, state Departments of Health, and the Australian Government’s Department of Finance.
Twenty-five high-impact clinical trials were evaluated across the three networks. Assuming results were implemented in 65 percent of the eligible Australian patient populations for one year:
- gross benefit would be approximately $2 billion measured through better health outcomes and reduced health service costs
- reductions in health service costs would account for 30% ($580 million) of the gross benefit, and this alone would exceed the total costs for the three networks and all of their research activity from 2004 to 2014
- the overall consolidated benefit-to-cost ratio for the networks is 5.8:1, or a return of $5.80 for every $1 invested
- the results of the 25 trials only needed to be implemented in 11% of the eligible patient populations for benefits to exceed costs
- for every $1 awarded in National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) grants to the 25 trials, a return of $51.10 was achieved
The three Australian Clinical Trial Networks evaluated in the report were the Australasian Stroke Trials Network (ASTN), Interdisciplinary Maternal Perinatal Australasian Collaborative Trials (IMPACT) Network, and the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group (ANZICS CTG). These three well-established networks have collectively overseen more than 460 individual trials.