Why smarter financial planning could be key to clinical trial success

Effective financial management is a cornerstone in the success of clinical trials, which are integral to the advancement of drug discovery. As the pharmaceutical and biotech industries continue to evolve, clinical trials become more complex, and the importance of robust financial oversight has never been clearer. Jennifer Kyle, Founder and CEO of Condor Software, has witnessed these challenges first-hand and developed a solution aimed at bridging the gap between financial management and clinical operations.

The role of financial management in clinical trials

Jennifer Kyle’s journey into the world of clinical trial financial management began with her experience as a financial auditor at Ernst & Young. While working with biopharma companies, she recognised the limitations in their financial systems. The manual handling of financial processes, spread across multiple spreadsheets, posed significant challenges to both accuracy and efficiency. This led her to found Condor Software in 2020, a company focused on providing cloud-based solutions that integrate financial operations with clinical trials.

“Effective financial management is integral to the success of clinical trials, which depend equally on scientific excellence and robust financial oversight,” Kyle explains. “While scientific advancements have accelerated, financial processes have lagged, creating critical bottlenecks.” As clinical trials continue to grow in complexity, the need for robust financial management has become ever more critical.

Clinical trials today are largely driven by emerging biotech companies, as opposed to large pharma. According to IQVIA data, approximately 60 percent of clinical trials are led by these smaller biotech firms.¹ These companies often have smaller budgets ranging from $30 million to $300 million per trial. However, many of them lack the dedicated financial systems needed to manage large contracts, particularly with contract research organisations (CROs) and other external vendors. Without sophisticated financial systems in place, clinical trials face delays, inefficient resource allocation, and even the risk of stalling or failure.

Kyle notes that “clinical trials face costly delays, inefficient resource allocation, and even standstill or stalling of trials, ultimately resulting in the failure to bring crucial treatments to market.” This is why financial oversight is so important  – without it, the success of a trial is jeopardised and the progress of drug development can be significantly hindered.

Financial inefficiencies in clinical trials and their impact

The primary financial inefficiencies in clinical trials stem from disconnected and outdated systems, with clinical operations and finance teams often working independently. These inefficiencies create bottlenecks, as the two teams must reconcile budgets and forecasts manually. This process is typically carried out via spreadsheets, which are prone to errors and require significant time and effort to maintain and update.

Kyle points out, “The primary financial inefficiencies in clinical trials stem from disconnected and outdated systems used independently by clinical operations and finance teams.” This siloed approach results in excessive manual reconciliation, leading to increased overhead costs, vendor overpayments, duplicated efforts and, ultimately, significant financial discrepancies. These inefficiencies have a direct impact on biopharma companies’ profitability, eroding their capital investments by increasing trial costs and impeding timely financial decision-making.

For smaller biotech companies, these challenges are particularly pronounced. With limited resources and growing demands, it becomes even more critical to find a way to streamline financial operations. Without the proper financial infrastructure, it is all too easy for a clinical trial to spiral out of control, draining valuable resources and stalling drug development efforts.

A solution for financial efficiency in clinical trials

Condor Software was designed specifically to address these financial inefficiencies. By centralising financial, clinical and vendor data, the platform allows biopharma companies to automate workflows, streamline collaboration and gain real-time insights into trial finances. This solution bridges the gaps between clinical operations and finance, providing a more seamless integration of the two functions.

Kyle elaborates on how Condor can assist: “Condor bridges critical gaps by integrating clinical, vendor and financial data into a centralised platform. By centralising the data, Condor eliminates the silos between team members and job functions to automate workflows, streamline collaboration and provide real-time financial insights at both a programme-wide and granular transaction level.” With its data centralisation capabilities, Condor significantly reduces the risk of manual errors, improves financial forecasting accuracy and helps prevent vendor overpayments.

By improving transparency and allowing teams to work with real-time data, Condor enables more informed decision-making and ensures better control over clinical trial costs. As a result, biopharma companies can better manage their finances, stay on track with their budgets, and ensure they are making the right financial choices to drive successful clinical trials.

The challenge of financial forecasting in clinical trials

One of the most difficult aspects of managing finances in clinical trials is forecasting. Due to the inherent unpredictability of clinical trials – such as evolving protocols, fluctuating enrolment numbers and varying vendor contracts – financial forecasting can become a major challenge for biopharma companies. Frequent updates across multiple contracts, accrual models and financial projections are necessary, but these processes are difficult to manage with traditional, manual approaches.

The use of spreadsheets only exacerbates the problem. They lack the agility to quickly reflect ongoing changes while maintaining version control. As Kyle notes, “The inherent unpredictability of clinical trials, such as evolving trial protocols, enrolment fluctuations and sheer volume of vendors that clinical-stage biopharmas contract with, creates significant challenges in financial forecasting.”

Condor’s platform addresses these challenges by offering a more agile, data-driven approach. Using real-time data centralisation, system automation and machine learning-enhanced forecasting, Condor enables finance teams to create adaptive financial models that accurately reflect the evolving conditions of the trial. This allows biopharma companies to forecast with greater precision, providing leaders with the information they need to make strategic financial decisions.

As Kyle explains, “Condor addresses these challenges through real-time data centralisation, system automation and machine learning-enhanced forecasting, providing finance teams precise, adaptive financial models that accurately reflect ongoing trial conditions.”

Best practices for improving financial management in clinical trials

For biopharma companies – particularly those in the early stages of clinical trials – implementing a robust financial system early on can help ensure the success of their trials. Kyle offers advice for clinical-stage and pre-clinical biotech companies, particularly those preparing for investigational new drug (IND) submissions: “My recommendation is to implement robust financial processes and scalable systems as early as possible.”

While using basic tools like Excel may be suitable for smaller operations or earlier stages of development, as companies progress into clinical stages or run multiple concurrent trials, more sophisticated solutions become necessary. Kyle encourages companies to invest in scalable financial systems, such as Condor’s financial intelligence platform, that streamline budgeting, forecasting, accruals and vendor management processes.

By implementing an integrated platform like Condor, companies can reduce the need for incremental staffing costs, as the platform automates repetitive tasks and improves the accuracy of financial operations. This approach also helps maintain visibility, accuracy and financial control, which are critical for navigating the uncertainties that arise throughout clinical development.

Kyle’s final words of advice to biopharma companies are clear: “Effective financial management powered by specialised technology is crucial for maintaining visibility, accuracy and financial control throughout clinical development, putting your team and company in the best position to succeed while navigating through all the uncertainties.”

The importance of financial oversight

As the biopharma industry continues to evolve, the role of financial management in clinical trials becomes increasingly important. Clinical trials are expensive and complex, and without effective financial oversight, there is a real risk that trials will face costly delays, inefficiencies and potential failure. Condor Software’s financial intelligence platform offers a solution to these challenges, providing biopharma companies with the tools they need to streamline operations, improve forecasting accuracy, and gain greater financial control over their trials.

By implementing robust financial systems and embracing the power of technology, biopharma companies can increase the likelihood of their clinical trials’ success. Ultimately, this will help to accelerate the development of new treatments, ensuring that promising therapies make it to market in a timely and cost-effective manner.

Reference

1. Emerging Biopharma’s Contribution to Innovation [Internet]. iqvia.com. Available from: https://www.iqvia.com/insights/the-iqvia-institute/reports-and-publications/reports/emerging-biopharma-contribution-to-innovation