EL PASO, TX – November 14, 2019 – A new report from TEConomy Partners, supported by PhRMA, indicates that biopharmaceutical industry investments at U.S. clinical trial sites generated more than $42 billion in economic activity in communities throughout the U.S. Despite recent growth in the number of regional clinical trial sites, El Paso still lags behind many US regions with regard to overall clinical trial activity. This disparity is exactly what the MCA Clinical Trial’s Consortium (CTC) looks to address through their activities and the launch of their new website.

The MCA Clinical Trial’s Consortium (CTC), launched in June 2018, is a forum that facilitates on-going dialogue and discussion among key industry stakeholders from the El Paso, Texas; Juarez, Mexico, and southern New Mexico region. It seeks to organize, plan, and implement strategies and initiatives designed to expand and accelerate the region’s infrastructure and competitiveness in clinical research and innovation.

Members of the CTC include hospital and health systems, physicians, clinical research coordinators, integrated research organizations, diagnostic service providers, academic faculty, among others.

“The Clinical Trial’s Consortium means improved access to new treatments for the community and the attraction and retention of the kind of specialists who are curious and who have research mindsets and orientations towards learning new things,” states Dr. Charles Miller, PhD., Associate VP for Clinical Research and Healthcare Quality and Chair of the MCA CTC. “There is so much to learn here and the community has not had access to a broad spectrum of clinical trials and research services before. This is a chance to bring something that is important and innovative to this corner of Texas and increase the sophistication of the level of care that is available to the people who live here.”

Since the CTC launch, the region has seen a growth in our clinical trial infrastructure and has gained 8 new clinical trial sites and 38 new clinical trials within 7 new specialties: nephrology, urology, family, pain, pulmonary, dermatology, and neurology.

The region has also seen an increase in high skilled, high wage jobs, including 32 trained Principal Investigators, 8 Clinical Research Coordinators/Study Manager Positions, and 2 Executive Positions.

With the launch of its new website, the CTC hopes to continue to grow the region’s clinical research community, give increased access to cutting edge medicine, engage local physicians in research, and provide high quality job opportunities for the region’s residents.

“The idea is to improve the coordination among all the key players and aspects of the industry to get people and providers thinking about clinical research as a way of delivering care routinely rather than it being something separate, special, and apart from what they do,” says Dr. Miller, “Through our website we hope to receive feedback from the community so we can figure out where the needs of this community are and what kind of needs we can meet and be effective in. It will help us with awareness, measurement, and improvement of what we are doing to improve community access to care.”

The newly launched MCA CTC website contains information for patients that are interested in clinical trials, information for doctors that would like to participate in administering clinical trials, and information for people who might be seeking a career in clinical research management. The CTC hopes that this new resource will ultimately improve coordination and effectiveness for advanced healthcare across the region.

To learn more about what the MCA CTC is doing and how to get involved with the CTC or clinical trials, visit the CTC’s new website https://mcamericas.org/clinical-trials. To stay up to date on progress in our region and upcoming events sign up for the CTC newsletter today.