As the number of clinical trials continue to increase, the demand for clinical research associates (CRAs) grows. This demand has resulted in a shortage of experienced CRAs, made worse by the increased complexity of the role as a result of new technologies.

In this whitepaper, ICON’s experts address our commitment to four main objectives to reducing the CRA drought. These include:

1. Accessing latent talent pools of experienced clinical professionals ready to transition into the CRA role
2. Opening the role to recent college graduates, especially those with life sciences degrees
3. Replacing CRA experience as a surrogate for CRA competence with competency-based assessments to ensure role proficiency
4. Developing a transparent model to introduce these new CRAs into the industry without increasing the delivery risk of the customer project or portfolio

The whitepaper also discusses how ICON plans to achieve these goals using their CRA Bridge program, which delivers foundation training for new, inexperienced CRAs for over the course of a decade.