In your years in this field, what have you learned as some, what keeps you kind of out of trouble and trials going forward when things do go wrong in terms of the communications piece?

Yeah.

And, you know, I think I have a few principles when it comes to kind of like the best practices of communicating.

And this has worked, especially in my case, because I'm constantly dealing with safety events or, you know, safety questions that come up for patients that are enrolled on a clinical trial.

And I think the biggest kind of principles that I've learned over the years is first, you know, listen before you speak.

For example, when I talk to investigators who are treating these patients, they're obviously trying to tell me something.

And if I don't listen completely and, you know, if I'm not listening 100%, I'm going to miss something.

Do you have a few favorites of what you do, Simran?

So how has the medical monitor r- role changed, uh, in these last years? And how can that person actually influence clinical strategy decisions and ultimately the execution of the trial?

Yeah, and you know, this is very interesting because I feel like this is still misunderstood about what a medical monitor does.

And so, and when you talk to people in cl- um, clinical research, in the industry, people really think of medical monitors as, like you said, physicians who, um, kind of review safety data, right? They, they're called in when there's an SAE or when there's an eligibility question or a, you know, complicated case to discuss, for example.

And yeah, those are very important parts of the role, and patient safety is the fundamental part of the role.

But I think the modern medical monitor contributes much more broadly, right? We sit at such a unique position because we're sitting in the middle of the patient, the investigator, the site, the protocol, and the emerging clinical data, and so this gives us visibility that everyone doesn't really see.

I think we're, what I like to say is we're at the core or the center of a clinical trial.

So, for example, we get to see, um, trends.

Um, what, what do you think the industry still needs to get better at?

do you mind just telling listeners just a little bit about yourself and what was it that brought you to life sciences?

Yeah, of course.

So as you said, I'm a research oncologist.

I currently serve as an executive director of medical affairs and oncology, and I've spent over 17 years working across oncology, drug development, clinical research and medical monitoring.

And I'm going to kind of just start off with talking about why I got into the field.

So growing up, you know, just like any other physician getting into the field, I didn't know or I didn't plan that I would go into clinical research.

And I went through med school expecting a more traditional clinical path like most physicians do.

From your perspective, what do biotech sponsors sometimes underestimate whenever they move from scientific promise to clinical execution?