What Sponsors Really Need from their CRO: Effective Financial Management
By Juli Burger
I’ve been in the clinical research arena as an accountant and controller for more than eight years, but what I know about good financial management, I learned long before I ever got to be part of the team bringing new drugs and devices to market.
I grew up bouncing between Denver, where I was born, and New Orleans, where my parents were born, two cities separated by 1,300 miles and about 5,300 feet of elevation. We routinely made this trip by car. The first road trip I remember was spent wedged between my brother and sister in the back of my mother’s old Cadillac for 20 hours. Most details of those trips passed in a blur, but I vividly remember one hot summer day when we realized, somewhere in the middle of a south-central Louisiana swamp, that the needle on the fuel gauge was hovering dangerously close to “empty.”
My mother switched off the A/C, cracked the windows, dropped her speed to the minimum, and inched along what felt at the time like an endless causeway over submerged cypress knees. I’ve never forgotten the tension inside that car nor the relief of hearing the fuel pump humming as our thirsty car drank in a full meal. That hot summer day taught me that a successful road trip isn’t just about the destination or the route, but rather it’s about managing your fuel between milestones.
The difference between that Cadillac and a clinical trial, however, is that a research project doesn’t rely on a single fuel gauge. Every study has layers of budgets. There are site budgets, vendor budgets, pass-through costs, monitor travel expenses, etc. Sometimes it feels like even the budgets have budgets. In that environment, the smallest deviation can snowball until the study team spends more time meeting to explain the surprise detours to the sponsor than preventing them in the first place.
No one enjoys those meetings.
But financial “surprises” are rarely a surprise at all. Looking back, I’m almost certain there was a sign to warn drivers that there wouldn’t be another gas station for miles. Unfortunately, no one noticed it until it was too late. Had we recognized the risk sooner, we could have topped off the tank earlier, for less money, before the stress of an emergency kicked in and our options narrowed.
As Controller at Clinical Trials Resource Group (CTRG), my responsibility is to help the team recognize those warning signs before financial risks become costly surprises. And that’s not just a matter of producing reports: knowing your fuel gauge is low is helpful. Knowing there’s an 18-mile bridge ahead is far more actionable. That context changes the risk and the decisions that you make as a result.
That’s one of the reasons I’ve put so much time into building financial dashboards. My goal isn’t simply to report on historical data but rather to help the study teams see the problems that may lie ahead while there’s still time to avoid them.
Good financial management won’t recruit a single patient or write a protocol. It isn’t glamorous. Most people won’t even notice it’s working, and that’s exactly the point.
In the research environment, it’s not enough to have a cutting-edge drug or device. Sponsors need partners who recognize risks early, make informed decisions, and know when it’s time to top off the tank.
What’s one “fuel gauge” your organization watches closely to keep projects on track?
About the Author
Juli Burger is the Controller at CTRG where she leads the financial operations for the company. She received her Master's in Accountancy from Tulane University and has been a proud member of the team at CTRG for six years. Juli uses her background in tax and small business advisory to help project teams transform complex financial data into practical insights that keep clinical studies under budget.