If you have the educational experience and the entrepreneurial spirit, then you might find that one of the most lucrative fields related to health care and biology is in research. Finding the new drug or treatment that improves patient outcomes, especially for some of the most dangerous diseases and conditions out there, can end up in a very valuable patent. But if you want to get researching, what are you going to need? Let’s take a look.
The funding and infrastructure
There is plenty of financial incentive for shareholders to start investing in clinical and medical research, but it’s critical to find that funding before you try to build the site. That initial funding is what will keep you going until new trials can continue to sustain the sites. As such, having a research project and an idea of the costs required to set it up are both required. Beyond that, ensuring the proper infrastructure is key. This includes putting in place policies of safety reporting, staff training, drug handling and destruction practices, and so on. If you’re performing research with live patients, then you should also look for affiliation with local hospitals and practices so that you can ensure you’re always recruiting enough people for your research.
Setting up the lab
First of all, you need the right location based on the aims of the research site. Finding out what kind of trials you’re going to be doing with what kinds of test subjects is crucial. Whether you’re serial testing blood, testing treatments on lab mice, or performing late-phase trials on patients, you must make sure that you have the space and equipment to host them. If you’re performing animal testing, then you need a reliable supplier of test ready animals like transgenic mice and the resources to keep them housed and cared for. For patients, this means ensuring you have an exam room with bed, refrigeration for test materials, storage for records and supplies, an area to monitor tests from, and so on.
Getting the right team
Research physicians and biologists might seem like the key members of the team that you need to find, but they are going to require help from others as well. First of all, you should look for study nurses and data managers to handle both clinical and administrative duties, such as data management and scheduling. Furthermore, any research operation is going to require both finance and legal professionals to ensure that budgets are balanced and any contracts are handled appropriately. Depending on the site size and the overall scale of the research, you may not need too many people for each trial. There are no clearly defined ways you should structure the business, so you have some freedom to find the method that works for you.
Naturally, without the proper education in healthcare and biology, and without the right experience in researching, the tips above aren’t going to be of much use. Make sure that you or a partner know what you’re doing before you set off on this potentially lucrative venture.