Board certified in medical oncology and hematology, Dr. Justin Favaro leads clinical research at Carolina Oncology Specialists, a OneR research partner, where he is the principal investigator on several open clinical trials.

OneOncology: Before partnering with OneR, what was the biggest barrier standing between your patients and access to clinical trials — and what made you realize OneR was the right solution to address it?

Dr. Justin Favaro: Getting access to high-quality clinical trials is the most important aspect of our partnership with OneR.  When you are a small practice like ours, gaining access to a wide array of innovative studies can be difficult. Being part of the OneR network changes that.  OneR opens the door, and gives us access, to pharmaceutical manufacturers that want to open up high-quality – standard of care changing – trials. Before OneR, we just didn’t have access to the best trials available.

OneOncology: What has OneR done that has helped the practice launch more trials or accrue more patients to trials?

Dr. Justin Favaro: OneR’s presence – through the size of the OneOncology network and the number of practices that are part of the OneR  – allows even a smaller practice to be an attractive research partner for research sponsors because sponsors realize that centralized contracting through OneR can enable access to a more diverse patient populations, which potentially leads to more robust data results, and thereby, better science.

But besides access to trials, when we meet with research sponsors  through OneR, we have the ability to give them feedback about what could improve study participation and what could make those trials better for our patients in community practices.  For sponsors, it’s highly beneficial to receive feedback from practices from all over the country about the best way is maybe to improve study participation or how to set up their trials that allows for better patient access to potentially great treatments.

OneOncology: Why is OneR important to your practice’s patient care?

Dr. Justin Favaro: I have patients that have enrolled in clinical trials centrally contracted through OneR, and they are getting access to investigational agents that they just otherwise wouldn’t have.

OneOncology: Why is it important for independent oncology practices to have a clinical trial site management organization?

Dr. Justin Favaro: We have eight doctors, four sites, and about 20 nurse practitioners. For practices like ours, building the infrastructure to comply with research-related regulatory requirements takes an immense amount of resources and time. OneR’s ability to centralize certain regulatory functions and contract negotiations,  allows our staff more time to focus on handling the local requirements and the clinical activities of the clinical trial.  

OneOncology: What should other oncology practices know about OneR that you didn’t know before partnering with them?

Dr. Justin Favaro: First, the access to high-quality clinical trials, where patients can potentially access investigational therapies they wouldn’t otherwise see.

Second, what OneR does behind the scenes is also extremely important. They negotiate all the contracts with the research sponsors. They have the initial contact. They organize the weekly meetings with new trial proposals from sponsors, spanning all trial phases.. And when the trials are presented, our practice decides if we want to open a specific trial – if we think it’s applicable to our patient population. So, not only do we get access to available trials, but we retain independent decision-making authority to determine if it’s right for our patients.

OneOncology: Five years from now, if OneR has delivered everything you're hoping for — what does your practice look like, and what does that mean for the cancer patients in your community who are counting on you?

Dr. Justin Favaro: Our practice’s goal is to become an active cancer center in the community where we're able to offer a huge venue of trials for all the different disease types – above and beyond what an academic center can offer. We see it as our obligation to bring our community world-class cancer care and clinical trials. OneR helps us deliver on that commitment.