At the 2024 AOSSM Annual Meeting in Denver, the AOSSM Research Committee (C. Benjamin Ma, MD, Chair) hosted a two-hour research workshop focused on promoting impactful research partnerships between clinicians and industry partners and highlighting examples of meaningful collaborations that have advanced the state of the art in Sports Medicine.
The workshop started with representatives from Arthrex, Enovis, Smith+Nephew and Stryker presenting their perspectives on sports medicine-related research and innovation. Four AOSSM member surgeons also spoke about their experiences collaborating with industry partners. The workshop concluded with an open panel discussion that involved extensive audience participation.
Attendees gained valuable insights into how best to approach avenues for research collaboration through industry representatives who articulated their broad visions for how partnerships with surgeons fit into their broader corporate strategies and offered practical suggestions for surgeons interested in proposing new research efforts.
Coen Wijdicks, PhD, MBA, Senior Director of Global Research at Arthrex, highlighted how Arthrex collaborated with sports medicine clinicians and surgeons while academic and foundational fundings have become increasingly competitive.
Michael McBrayer, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Professional Relations at Enovis, shared their enthusiasm to create the next generation of “possible” together with AOSSM members, and encouraged all who are interested in working together not to hesitate to approach the industry and start the conversation.
Matt Christensen, Senior Vice President of Global Clinical & Medical Affairs at Smith+Nephew, illustrated the various spectrum of industry involvement in a research project from supporting a single item of an investigator-initiated project to industry-driven developments.
Colleen Roden, Senior Director of Clinical Sciences and Operations at Stryker, showed how the industry can empower global clinical data collection using mobile technologies, while sharing how their clinical partners can help the industry fit in the role to support their research endeavors.
After a Q&A session with the industry representatives, our AOSSM surgeon member panelists shared their experiences in successfully partnering with industry improve patient care through both basic science and clinical research.
Sara Edwards, MD, Professor at University of California – San Francisco, shared how her team studied and tackled narcotics addiction problem through a long-lasting partnership with Enovis.
Jeffrey Nepple, MD, MS, Associate Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, presented how multiple industry partnerships worked fluently with extramural fundings as the multicenter ANCHOR thrives.
Alvin Su, MD, PhD, Associated Professor at Nemours Children’s Health Delaware, Thomas Jefferson University, revealed his story of advancing basic science engineering studies at early-mid career where the industry helped bridge between the seed funding and extramural opportunities.
Brian Werner, MD, Associated Professor at University of Virginia, showed a beautiful example of how the resources from industry synergized the surgeon’s effort on clinical data collection and analysis.
Alvin Su, MD, PhD (Nemours Children’s Health Delaware, Thomas Jefferson University), Andrew Sheean, MD (Brooke Army Medical Center) and Kurt Spindler, MD (Cleveland Clinic) served as moderators for the event and led a wide-ranging discussion among the panelist and workshop attendees.
- Key Takeaways
- Industry’s support of research is broad in terms of the resources available and the capabilities of the enterprise.
- Many industry partners provide a mechanism whereby clinicians can submit their proposals through their research portals for research collaboration (see below for links). The panel emphasized the importance of using these established mechanisms to ensure vetting in a timely fashion and in a manner that maximizes the internal visibility of potential avenues for collaboration.
- Early career clinicians and scientists have many opportunities working with the industry; sustained energy and commitment are useful in establishing clinicians as valuable partners, whose research priorities may align with corporate strategic priorities.
- AOSSM annual meetings and other orthopedic conferences represent promising opportunities to connect with the industry. From our industry partners: “We are definitely approachable. Don’t think there’s any barrier talking to us!”
- Working through the administrative and logistic process and kinks are expected. More lead time is always favored; avoid “last-minute request” to the industry for funding with unclear scientific aims.
- Licensing/IP clause can be case-by-case via negotiation.
- Investigator-initiated Research
- It behooves the clinician investigator to align with industry interests and engage early in the process to enrich his/her understanding of corporate strategic priorities. Doing so aids clinician investigators in assessing the broader feasibility of a proposed partnership.
- Industry prefers to give material support to effort execution as opposed to defraying overhead-related expenses and/or indirect costs.
- Showing good science, a research plan, and the dedication to completing the research are important, even though the proposal may not have a rigid format like the federal funding proposals.
- Industry-sponsored Research:
- Industry sponsored patient registries may not extend to critical data such as patient reported outcomes and the control for bias; there are tools that can be integrated to improve this
- Multi-center trials / study groups are appealing to the industry, but they are not the only type of research the industry would support
Industry Grant/Research Portals:
https://enovis.com/corporate-info/compliance/donations_grants
