Clinical research endures countless problems that seem to have simple solutions. An organization here or an organization there may solve a particular problem, but we can’t seem to spread even simple solutions across the clinical research enterprise. As a result, we waste huge amounts of time and money on highly inefficient processes. Clinical studies are delayed, fail or never even attempted. Patients pay the ultimate price. There has to be a better way.

The Elimar Prize for Collaborative Solutions in Clinical Research has been established to mobilize, support and reward collaborative innovations that address significant operational problems in clinical research with practical, pervasive solutions. Elimar stands ready to award an annual prize of $100,000—along with recognition and acclaim—to collaborative teams that solve significant clinical research problems and propagate the solutions across the clinical research enterprise.

Are you fed up with the insanity? Are you ready to tackle a significant clinical research problem in a collaborative team effort? If so, click here to register your proposed solution today. The patients can’t wait.

For over 20 years, I’ve been trying to fix clinical research (click here). Countless others have also tried, yet the old problems remain unsolved, and new ones arrive. (click here) The root cause appears to be alligators: Everyone is so busy with today’s problems that they have no time to invest in solutions that may pay off later. For example, a simple but wasteful problem that should be easy to fix involves confidential disclosure agreements (CDAs). The administrative site personnel who read and negotiate CDAs are not the people—PIs and study coordinators—who are most likely to disclose the secrets. And even if they do read the CDAs, do you really expect them to track the subtle differences between them? A standard CDA (or three) should meet any legitimate needs for intellectual property protection.

On July 21, 2026, I achieved my GLP1-powered weight-loss goal. The very next day, I received a totally unexpected diagnosis of metastatic liver cancer. Time for a new goal.

I can probably count on a life expectancy of at least two to three years. Bad news, but the initial prognosis was even worse. (Kudos to Medicare and my oncology team at WakeMed.) Other than hair loss (sigh), chemotherapy side effects have been minimal. My motto, “Never Break Stride,” has never been more pertinent. To quote Samuel Johnson, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

The Elimar Prize for Collaborative Solutions in Clinical Research is named after my parents, Eli and Marilyn, who get a lot of the credit for what I’ve done right with my life.) Clinical research has been good to me, so an endowment supporting a $ 100,000-per-year prize is a small price to pay for its future success.

Our top priority now is to create the Elimar infrastructure, especially a Prize Committee of 20 or so highly respected, influential and innovative clinical research leaders. In addition to selecting prize winners, Prize Committee members will lend support and guidance to Solution Teams.

It is truly remarkable how much aggravation clinical research professionals can tolerate. Well, perhaps not forever. Maybe now we can start turning complaints into solutions.