Resources
This FAQ section is designed to address the most common questions about Elias Research and our services. Whether you’re interested in our study management processes or contract negotiation expertise, you’ll find a wealth of information to guide you. If your inquiry isn’t covered here, our team is ready to provide further assistance.
Pre-Member
What is the cost of joining the Elias Research network?
There is no cost to joining our site network and receiving clinical trial opportunities from Elias Research. Our process of submitting site interest, feasibilities, CDAs, scheduling qualification visits, and following up for next steps for your site is all done free of charge to your site. We are only paid if your site is paid. We are compensated by sponsors/CROs as the study payee once your site begins receiving payments for an initiated study.
What are the steps to join the Elias Research network?
A Site Application with basic information about your site needs to be completed.
Our Business Development team will reach out to schedule a meet-and-greet call with your site.
Your Site/PIs must pass a general screening check that ensures that your site operates legally and that your PIs are actively licensed with no egregious disciplinary actions on record.
Once approved, your site will officially be invited to register with Elias Research. After registration has been completed, your site will receive your PIN numbers and you will be added to the new study distribution list. The PIN numbers will allow you to apply for the new studies that you receive.
How often do you send out new study opportunities and in what indications are they for?
We send out 3-5 clinical trial opportunities per week across all indications (except for oncology).
Do you create an “eliasreseach.com” email address for each PI?
We create an email address but it is not an actual email account; there is no inbox or password.
This is called an EMAIL ALIAS (known as a forwarding email) for Elias Research to identify which emails are for your PI. This is how we know when a sponsor/CRO provides information or documents for your PI for a study you applied for through Elias Research.
This is a non-negotiable part of our internal study identification and tracking process.
If we notice a PI alias being used after selection, we promptly forward those emails to the sites for correction with the sponsor/CRO.
Do we have to sign a contract to join the Elias Research network?
When registering your site with Elias Research, you are required to agree to our terms and conditions. Additionally, when you submit the representation agreement to express your interest in a specific study, you will be required to agree to the same terms and conditions.
Pre-selection
How long will it take for my site to be selected for a study?
The average amount of time between study query date (the date we email the new study to sites) and first selection notice is 7 months.
However, this is just an average timeline, as we do have plenty of studies that reach selection sooner and/or later.
How do I increase my chances of being selected for a study?
PI/Site Experience – We advise our sites to not apply for every trial we send out, but to focus on the indications they have experience on and adequate patient access for, to help their site stand out to the sponsor/CRO.
Data Integrity – We ask our sites to be accurate and consistent in the information they provide, not only on our representation agreements but also on feasibilities they complete. We aim to submit 100% complete and accurate feasibilities on behalf of our sites.
Responsiveness – Sites should quickly return all documents and quickly reply to emails with other requests. Even if the requested information or action is still pending; providing an update on the progress of a request reflects well on a site’s ability to communicate effectively and successfully navigate a clinical trial. This also exhibits to sponsors/CROs that a site is a eager and a good candidate.
Certain areas of the country are heavily saturated with research sites, which makes it highly competitive. We have found that having a fitting specialist for the trial is will help your site stand out.
Will I receive study updates and how do I know if the study has progressed?
If any information or documents are provided for your PI, we will email them to the main contact for the site right away. If a study progresses, we will send a notice to all submitted sites (for that specific study). Due to the large volume of active studies and sites in our network, we are not able to send individual study updates or “no news” updates. Consequently, sites are welcome to request a study tracker containing a list of all the studies they have completed agreements for and the status of each study. We can accommodate this request once per quarter when requested by authorized site personnel.
Is it possible that I will be contacted directly by a sponsor/CRO for a study that Elias submitted my site for?
Occasionally, the sponsor/CRO will accidentally send study documents to the directly to the PI or site staff. If this happens, we require our sites to immediately notify Elias and forward the communications so that we can intervene and alleviate any possible confusion with the sponsor/CRO. This leads to the importance of each site keeping their own study tracker for every study they are working on (whether through Elias Research, directly with a sponsor/CRO, or another SMO). Keeping all study details on a searchable document will reduce duplication of efforts, confusion, and delays. We email a copy of every study application to the site submitter, and we expect sites to keep those emails as reference for submission history.
How do I update my site profile or add another PI?
When you receive your registration confirmation, you will also receive links to update your site profile and add additional PIs.
This does not mean that additional PI(s) added at a later date will automatically be accepted into our network.
It is important to notify Elias of staff changes, PI changes and address relocations as soon as possible. We must have your site’s most accurate information in our database because we are continuously submitting that information to sponsors/CROs with every study application.
Contract/budget
What can I expect during negotiations?
We will send the initial contract (without revision) and initial budget (with our margin deducted) to sites within 24 hours of receipt from sponsor/CRO. We ask sites to return their requests within 2-4 business days.
Once received, we will counter the budget and contract and continue into several rounds of negotiations just between SMO and sponsor/CRO with the site’s main requests in mind. We will not send these middle negotiation offers to sites if they are below what they have requested in their initial ask.
We will only go back to sites for their review when 1) the budget becomes non-negotiable or 2) the budget meets or beats their requests.
This process can average 1-2 months and because we do not send out “no news” updates, sites are welcome to email their contract specialist to request an update.
What is the SMO Payment Agreement?
The SMO Payment Agreement is the agreement between SMO and site only, which includes 1) the budget payable “to site” with the SMO margin deducted and 2) the terms of service between our two parties.
This document is signed at the same time as the Sponsor or CRO’s contract, which has the corresponding budget payable “to SMO”. We do not slipsheet our “to site” budget into the contract, which guarantees complete financial transparency with our sites and avoids financial confusion.
Sites approve and sign both the contract and SMO payment agreement and their respective budgets and are able to compare them side by side to confirm our margin has been taken as stated, no secret fees.
We also mark the cells that we deduct our margin from in unique color or highlight.
What is the Elias Margin?
One Time Fee from Start Up
We take a one-time fee from start up to compensate business development for their time and efforts during the 1-6 month on average feasibility process, which is done for sites without upfront cost.
This fee is tiered because if the start-up fee is low, we do not want to take any portion of it from sites.
We take a corresponding larger amount if we can increase the start up to a larger amount.
Ongoing Fee – 9% Of Procedures with Overhead
We consider ourselves part of site overhead so our margin is mainly deducted from procedures/fees that are paid with overhead.
These are mainly the procedures that are listed in the visits, as well as special or repeat procedures in the invoiceable section that are paid with overhead.
Exceptions:
Stipends are always passthrough (even if paid with Overhead) which includes Visit, Call, Caregiver, Parking, Meal, Travel, Hotel, Flight Stipends etc.
Vendor Costs, payable upon receipt of a vendor are always passthrough. Ex: Advertising.
All other Initial Fees (Like Pharmacy Set Up, etc.), Annual Fees, and Close Out Fees are passthrough.
Site Costs like SAE and Audit Fees, etc. are all passthrough.
payments
How quickly will I receive my payments?
- Once we receive both the payment and payment details from the sponsor/CRO, we initiate ACH payments every Thursday. Payments received by Friday will be processed the following Thursday.
- A detailed excel remittance, including itemized payment information such as Protocol, Site, PI, Visits, Holdback, Procedure Name, and Amounts, is emailed to the site’s authorized recipient with each ACH payment.
- We cannot pay sites if the funds are not received from sponsor/CRO first. SMO assumes no financial liability if funds are not received by sponsor/CRO. In the event of non-payment by sponsor/CRO, institution’s exclusive cause of action for non-payment shall be against sponsor/CRO.
Whom do I contact if my payments are late?
VISITS – If your Visit Payment is overdue by more than 15-30 Days, please notify us at Payments@eliasresearch.com and provide the Subject Number, Visit Number, and Visit Date(s) for the missing visit payments. We will then follow-up with the sponsor/CRO and request an update for your site.
Please do not invoice for missing visits to sponsor/CRO or to Elias Research, because we only require an emailed notice of missing visit payment to begin investigating.
INVOICES – If your Invoice Payment is overdue by more than 15-30 Days, please notify us at Payments@eliasresearch.com and provide your invoice number and the date you first submitted the invoice to Elias. We will then follow-up up with the sponsor/CRO and request an update for your site.
Sites should not submit any invoices to the sponsor/CRO directly because Elias Research must submit all invoices as the study Payee. Sites submit their invoices requests to Payments@eliasresearch.com and provide any back-up information, receipts, approval emails, etc. as required by Contract. Elias will submit our invoice to the sponsor/CRO and, once we receive payment, will send the payment to the site.
Why haven’t I received my payment yet?
Most common reasons:
1. Sponsor/CRO is Late. They are behind on payments 30-60 days on Average.
2. We received the payment, but have not been provided the payment detail.
3. Site has not completed their EDC/CRF correctly. Site may be asked to provide proof of accurate EDC when requesting updates on visit payments.
3. The missing/late visits were screen failures and need to be invoiced.
Connect with Us
Learn more about our collaborative opportunities and how to become part of our network.
studies@eliasresearch.com
(208) 346-8900
1717 North 3rd Street, Coeur d'Alene, ID 83814