FOUR MAIN TRIAL TYPES AT MMCT

 Commercially Funded Trials

Here a major sponsor such as a biopharma company pays to have a clinical trial site become part of their study. Fifty percent of the trials performed by MMCT – in terms of trial numbers – are commercial in nature. MMCT aims to ensure that all commercial trials make a degree of profit which is then channelled back into local, or investigator initiated trials. All data in commercial trials is owned by the sponsor.

Investigator Initiated Trials

MMCT encourages and supports researchers who wish to embark on investigator initiated trials. These trials are where the investigator writes the trial protocol and then seeks funding to support the trial. The data in these trials is owned by the researcher. Funding for investigator initiated trials usually comes from grants or dedicated funds from the investigator's own department.

Collaborative Group Trials

These trials set out to answer a local or regional question that a group of specialists in a particular area want answered. Sometimes, such trials come with assigned funding. On other occasions, it may be up to the site to find the assigned funds.

Grant Funded Trials

Significant Investigator-Initiated research is undertaken at Counties Manukau Health, which results in multiple publications in top tier journals annually. The largest and arguably most prestigious publicly funded granting body for research in New Zealand is the Health Research Council (HRC). HRC grants are typically issued to those with a long and successful research history garnered over years of undertaking smaller grant-funded research. These grants and other funding bodies include, but are not limited to:

• HRC - Early Investigator Grants
• HRC - Clinical Fellowships
• HRC – Feasibility Studies
• Auckland Medical Research Foundation (AMRF) Project Grants
• Maurice and Phyllis Paykel Trust (MPPT) Project Grants
• NZ Lottery Health Project Grants
• Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF) (NZ Universities)