Central IRB submissions: the CIRB model, reliance agreements, and what the local site still owes
Teaches the RC to manage CIRB submission workflows at portfolio scale, navigate retained institutional obligations under reliance agreements, and design preventive controls for the failure points unique to central IRB models.
The assumption that trips up experienced coordinators
Central IRBs were supposed to simplify everything. One IRB reviews the protocol. One portal accepts the submission. One approval letter arrives. And in a sense, that promise has been delivered -- the ethical review process is genuinely streamlined when a central IRB like WCG or Advarra handles the primary review for a multi-site trial.
But here is what catches even experienced regulatory professionals: the central IRB handles the ethical review. It does not handle everything. The relying institution -- your site -- retains obligations that no amount of central IRB efficiency eliminates. Local context review. Ancillary committee approvals. Institutional policy compliance. State-specific regulatory requirements. And these retained obligations differ not just from institution to institution, but from study to study within the same institution, because the scope of what is retained depends on the specific reliance agreement.
For the RC managing a portfolio, this means that every CIRB study in the portfolio requires a dual-track workflow: one track for the central IRB submission, and a parallel track for the retained institutional obligations. Managing one dual-track workflow is straightforward. Managing five WCG studies, two Advarra studies, and a university CIRB study -- each with different portals, different retained obligations, and different timelines -- is an exercise in operational coordination that demands systematic design.
What you will learn
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to: