Dennis Joseph on Functional Service Providers

Dennis Joseph of Pfizer spoke about the Functional Service Provider model of flexible resourcing. He placed this in the context of his responsibility for Europe, with the rapid increase of studies being conducted in Latin America and Asia. In addition to increasing costs, trials and patients per trial, he highlighted the requirement for quick integrations in these merger-heavy times.
Four years ago, Pfizer noted that it was working with over 150 CROs and it decided it could do more to leverage its scale in outsourcing studies to CROs. The FSP model involves exclusive staffing, working to Pfizer SOPs from the vendor’s premises, with the vendor retaining all responsibility for training etc.
Dennis outlined how the FSP model had been used in study monitoring. National project managers work directly with the vendor’s team, while senior management handle the strategic relationships. Pfizer trains the vendor’s training team (although Pfizer will provide project-specific training). Within the strategic arrangement, individual projects are handled by separate work orders.
The selection process was very interesting, with qualified suppliers btaking part in a reverse auction. The auction was intended to take place for 1 hour but lasted 5, and showed a decrease in bid price of over $25m.
Looking at whether the pilot delivered, Dennis showed the different balance of internal, contract and FSP staff in different national operations. One problem was speed of provision: the original contract required 90 days, but this did not fit with Pfizer’s actual timelines, so this has been decreased to 60 days… although this will be offset by better forecasting from Pfizer. There were also differences in staff turnover (up to 30%) between FSPs, although these were not widely different from internal turnover. FSP staff appeared to be less productive than internal staff, particularly with more experienced monitors who were most ingrained in their ways of working.
There appears to be a 15% premium for using FSP staff, although this is considered an acceptable price for the greater flexibility.
In summary, the FSP model has given access to monitors in a tight labout market, an unburdening of admin tasks (eg, IT, line management etc.) and maintenance of customer staisfaction.
In years to come, Dennis expects the training model to change to a “super-user”model. Work orders will be combined across multiple projects. The minimum of 2 years experience sometimes needs to be more flexible. In the longer term, Dennis will be looking for increased productivity and lower costs, enabling the use of a higher proportion of FSP monitors.