After gaining a Master’s degree in pharmacy at Kanazawa University in 1997, Yukiko Matsushima started her career in clinical research at Novo Nordisk Pharm, Japan, as a clinical research associate (CRA). At Novo Nordisk, she was in charge of monitoring the diabetic trials at public and university hospitals from study initiation to completion. She also took part in the protocol development of an osteoporosis trial.
In 1999, taking advantage of her CRA experience, she joined Kanazawa University Hospital as a clinical research coordinator (CRC). In the hospital, she coordinated 60-70 trials in a variety of disease areas, such as diabetes, hyperlipidemia, peripheral arterial disease, atopic dermatitis, ulcerative colitis, hepatitis C, hepatocellular carcinoma and so on. At the same time, she managed investigational drugs as a pharmacist and the IRB as a member of the IRB secretariat. In 2010 she was promoted to assistant director of the center for clinical research management and built a comprehensive management system for the clinical trials in the hospital.
In 2011, with more than 10 years' experiences in clinical research, she took her work to academia. Her work involves cutting-edge research of efficient clinical trials at the faculty of pharmacy in Keio University.
She is currently conducting international comparative research into CRC jobs in Australia and Japan. She has also been collaborating on CRC training with the Office of Human Medical Research in Queensland, Australia, since 2011.
She gave many lectures related to Roles and Responsibilities of CRC on CRC training course offered by government and academic associations.
She is a member of the program committee of Conference on CRC and Clinical Trials (CCCT) 2014 in which more than 3000 Japanese CRCs participate and she will be assigned to be the chairman of the committee on CCCT 2015.