“We want clinical trials to work so patients are considered at every stage of the journey. From the start and at the heart of the study.”
Leah Iles is a homegrown mdgroup talent. Coming from a Commercial Pharma and Med Ed background, she joined the team over 5 years ago as an Account Director and has gone from strength to strength.
Now holding the position of Executive Vice President, Leah looks after Europe and Asia and heads up our global support services, including procurement and facilities, legal, quality and compliance, travel, and events and exhibitions.
Here Leah talks about her experience, passion and how she’s supporting us to create remarkable patient experiences.
What is your role and your key responsibilities at mdgroup?
I’m a professional executive, looking after all of the departments globally under the support services umbrella globally. I am also the country manager for EMEA and Asia.
I am responsible for executing the mdgroup strategy, coaching and supporting my heads of department and their teams to deliver remarkable services.
As the company has grown, my role has become much more focused on procurement and facilities, as we prepare to launch several dispensaries for our home health services around the world.
What are you most passionate about in your field of expertise?
In my role, I have to not be scared to have ten different plates spinning all at once and be able to jump from one ship to the other very quickly.
I work extremely closely with my department heads who I trust, empower and rely upon to know their field. I am their support, voice on the exec team, and am always there for them to bounce ideas and thoughts off of.
I also am able to challenge them from a strategic business perspective, ensuring all departments are developing in tandem and progressing as they need to for us to achieve our objectives as a business.
So my passion is the fast pace, diversity of work and empowering my teams to do the very best job and make life better for patients taking part in clinical trials.
How has COVID-19 changed the clinical research industry?
It’s changed it massively. I have seen the impact across all of my departments. Events have gone virtual, travel is now more domestic vs international, quality with audits is virtual, procurement/supply chain now has to be hyper vigilant with equipment. Home health is also more important than ever, with nurses in high and low demand during different peaks and troughs of the virus.
How has that impacted the way your teams operate?
Everyone has adapted better than we could have ever imagined. It hasn’t always been easy though. I ‘ve been a part of helping open our first medical distribution centre (Horreum) in Durham, North Carolina and many a time I wished I could just jump on a plane and help the team get organised while they have been so busy keeping our services operational.
But it’s all worked out really well. I definitely feel like home working is the future.
What do you hope to see evolve within the clinical industry over the next five years?
The COVID-19 clinical trials have really shown things can move more quickly. So I would like to think that ethos remains for some important drugs in their therapeutic areas. Likewise, trials being more patient centric and giving patients the opportunity to have home visits as part of the study to make it easier or more comfortable for them vs going to site.
How is mdgroup a part of this evolution?
Everyone at mdgroup is an advocate to patients. Speaking up for them when they don’t feel they can or empowering them to have a voice. We want clinical trials to work so patients are thought about at every stage, they should be at the very heart of a clinical trial. We’re putting patients first through personalised patient care, delivered with the support of home grown technologies. Our vision is to make life better for all patients taking part in clinical trials.
Discover how our mission to combine personalised patient care with digital technology to create remarkable patient experiences could boost the success of your clinical trial. Get in touch today.
