Dr. William J. Beliveau developed a passion for medical research as a resident decades ago, and while he’s made his career as an internist and pulmonologist, he also has set aside time to continue to test the latest therapies and stay on the cutting edge of health care.
That’s why he started Clinical Partners LLC, a small medical practice with a single purpose: to conduct clinical trials, primarily for new drugs and other pharmaceutical products, but occasionally also for non-drug supplements with possible therapeutic value.
Unlike Atwood Medical Associates in the same building complex, where Beliveau is practice manager, Clinical Partners has no patients – only research subjects.
And while Beliveau and the two nurses with whom he works – his partner, Caroline DiGiulio, and Laurie Boucher – carefully monitor each person’s health, response to treatment, apparent side effects and more, they do so as part of tightly structured studies, not for its own sake.
In fact – this is just the nature of most drug trials – in any given study, half the people involved are getting a placebo, and to ensure there’s no bias in the data, Beliveau, DiGiulio and Boucher themselves don’t know who is in which group.
“We find out years later who was on the placebo,” DiGiulio noted, though Beliveau added that if there is ever any concern about a patient’s safety, the study will be unblinded right away.
Clinical Partners conducts trials in several areas: cardiology; oncology; dermatology, especially psoriasis; gastroenterology, including irritable bowel disease therapies; gynecology; pulmonary medicine, including sinusitis, asthma, bronchitis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease treatment; and diabetes care.
The majority of the trials involve adults, though a few involve adolescents, and one trial so far has involved children, DiGiulio said. Subjects are recruited through their doctors’ offices, urgent-care facilities and hospitals, and through ads.
Some trials are short – a treatment for bronchitis, for example, might be tested for just a month, and an acne ointment might be evaluated for just 12 weeks or so. Others last months and even years.
Each trial is overseen by a specialist in the relevant field. Dr. Ellen Frankel, for example, chief of dermatology at St. Joseph’s Hospital (where Beliveau is chief of medicine) and head of the state’s largest dermatology practice, leads psoriasis, acne and other skin treatment trials.
Beliveau, for his part, monitors the patients’ overall condition and any symptoms they report during the study, whether they appear related or not: headaches, a runny nose, snoring.
Most of the participants have doctors of their own and health insurance, DiGiulio said, but they want to try something that might help them more than their current treatment. And many come back for more trials, because they develop relationships with the nurses and like the extra attention they get – no rushed 10-minute checkups here.
“I can’t tell you how many come back and tell us, ‘It’s been a joy,’ ” said Boucher.
“They get attention here like they’re not going to get at a doctor’s office,” said Beliveau. “It may not be unusual for [the nurses] to spend an hour with a single patient.”
This is only possible because Clinical Partners devotes itself entirely to clinical trials, Beliveau said; otherwise, his team would be subject to the same time constraints as other medical practices, at the expense both of the trial participants and of the record-keeping.
And keeping records and good specimens is painstaking work. Along with all the normal gear you would find in a doctor’s office, they have specialized freezers, lab equipment to take and analyze blood right on site, and a super-secure storage area.
Asked about recent controversies over ethics in drug trials, Beliveau said he’s conscious of the issues, and he’s “very selective about what I’ll take,” because he wants to make sure every trial in which Clinical Partners participates will truly benefit patients. He turns down about 10 requests, he said, for every one he accepts.
As for the business side, Beliveau wouldn’t say how much the company is making, but he did say it’s been growing at a rate of about 10 to 15 percent a year. That’s because pharmaceutical companies like his team’s approach, with its partnerships with specialists, he said.
“The value of how this is set up is matching the physician expertise to the study,” he said, “and I think more and more, the pharmaceutical industry is going to be moving in that direction.” •
Company Profile: Clinical Partners LLC
Owners: Dr. William J. Beliveau, Caroline DiGiulio
Type of business: Dedicated clinical research site
Location: Atwood Medical Center, 1524 Atwood Ave., Johnston
Employees: 3, including owners, plus affiliated physicians
Year established: 1998
Annual revenue: WND
