In this last video of the Christmas Q&A series, I will answer questions from Ines, Laetitia, Jalila and Nathalie.

Inès,

Hello, I have a great confusion related to the various financial agreements between the promoter and investigator. Could you explain that to me, please?

Currently, there are two types of contracts. The direct contract, i.e. the contract directly with the investigator. It is a contract where the investigator is a liberal. And there are also single convention contracts. Now there are only 2 types of contracts and the association contracts are no longer allowed. In any case, they are authorized but these are contracts of performance with an association. These are not contracts between the investigator, the promoter and the association. So, if you want more information on the single convention, do not hesitate to read this article and otherwise for the direct contract it is a simple contract between 2 private companies, i.e. company of the investigator who is liberal and the promoter.

Laetitia,

I would like to know what steps to be a freelancer? How many years of experience do you need to be a freelancer? And how to find contracts? How can we reconcile family and professional life? And what is the amount of the contracts. What income can be expected?

To be a freelancer, one can do it either in wage portage, in individual company or in company. I prefer, I recommend you the wage portage to start. So you are an employee in an umbrella company and it is you who are looking for your own customers but you are salaried and therefore you have as a status of commercial and technical. This makes it easy to start your freelance career. Then in terms of experience, you must start from 4 years of experience rather in CRO or pharmaceutical laboratory. The best thing is to have done different types of tasks. For example, monitoring tasks, also CSC missions and regulatory submissions. This makes it possible to diversify the missions that are sought and to be able to find missions more easily.

To find contracts, you have to use LinkedIn, the contacts we had in the past in the various companies in which we worked. You should also contact recruitment agencies. There are many English consultants who are looking for freelancers so contact them and make yourself known and be present on the internet. As a freelancer, it is easier to reconcile work and family life, since it is you who choose the number of hours you will work, how many projects you will allocate to yourself. Whether you want or not to be at 100% of your time. So it’s a lot easier, then everyone sees how he can do it. In any case it makes it possible to better reconcile professional and family life. In order for the activity to be profitable, it is necessary to be on a regular basis and not too low in terms of hourly rates compared to the competition.

So I made an article about freelancers CRA, all rates and hourly rates are indicated, so read on this article you will know more about the freelance profession. For services, they can offer monitoring, CSC, regulatory submission, project manager services. And for contract amounts, it’s really variable so it’s a bit difficult to tell you here. You can expect to multiply your salary by two or 1.5 but you should know that it will allow especially in lean times to have money aside while waiting for the next contract. So you have to be in constant search and have a strong commercial side to be freelancer.

Jalila,

I am a general practitioner with a foreign degree and I would like to know if having done an internship in France in hematology and clinical research and without a French diploma, can I become a CRA?

Yes, you can become CRA, because you have experience in clinical research. You have experience in hematology and no matter if you have a French or foreign degree. I would even say that you could try to be medical monitor so it is the doctor who is expert of the product, the protocol and who trains the CRAs on the pathology of the protocol and who answers the questions of the investigators on the protocol and the molecule. So I think it can be a track for you. You can of course be CRA and you can also try to see for the profession of medical monitor, there are positions of this type in the pharmaceutical laboratories as well as in the CRO.

Nathalie,

Hi Vanessa, I recently sent you a message via site the blog site and I have not received any response. Is there an e-mail address that we can contact when we have questions about clinical research?

I am a Pharmacist graduated from Africa, I am interested in clinical research, I currently reside in the United States and I am bilingual. I would like to settle in France for a master’s degree in clinical research but I also think the Sup Health training. Compared to my previous studies, do you advise me a master’s degree in clinical research or the Sup Health training?

In fact to contact me, you have to write in the comments of the blog if you have a question because I have quite a lot of activities. I am manager of my company, also CRA, project manager and sometimes CSC. So with the amount of activity I have it’s a bit difficult for me to answer all the questions from all internet users. But on the other hand, I reply to comments like that everybody can have access to all the answers.

Concerning the training, I would recommend you the Sup Health training, you will be able to go to work after a few months. You already have a pharmacist degree which is a plus for you and for your evolution in pharmaceutical laboratories. So Project Manager will be easier for you. The master it lasts anyway a year, it all depends on your desire, do you want to work quickly? Or would you like to have an additional degree? Your pharmacist degree is more than enough in my opinion.

So it was the Christmas question-answer, it’s over. I would try to do other questions and answers like this on video. Thank you for watching this video, do not hesitate to subscribe to our channel, share the video if it can serve someone and thank you very much and see you soon.