Dr Ulrike Lorch, MD FRCA FFPM
Chief Medical Director and Founder

Dr Ulrike Lorch co-founded Richmond Pharmacology in 2001.  She is the Chief Medical Director and a Principal Investigator for early phase clinical trials.

Ulrike is the Group Scientific Lead for Clinical Trial Design and Methodology at Richmond Pharmacology's not-for-profit arm, the Richmond Research Institute.

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Early Phase Clinical Trials

Ulrike is an expert for design, conduct, analysis, and reporting of early phase clinical trials. This includes first-in-human trials for small molecules, biologicals, and advanced therapies. Many of the trials include patient participants, some with rare diseases.

Ulrike’s special interest is in innovative, adaptive clinical trial design.  This is combined with leadership in continuous improvement process, developing and using a toolbox of standards, guidelines and local work instructions, which can be customized to the requirements of any particular trial and patient group.

The aim of these trials and their methodologies is to reach patients fast with newly developed effective treatments.

As Chief Medical Director she is responsible for the clinical safety of all trials at Richmond Pharmacology.  Richmond Pharmacology has continuously held the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) Phase 1 accreditation, since it was implemented.

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Training and Education Activities

Ulrike is a Fellow of the Royal College of Anaesthetists and of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine (FPM), with a Board Certification in Pharmaceutical Medicine.

Richmond Pharmacology is a Designated Body for the revalidation of doctors by the General Medical Council and Ulrike is the Appraisal Lead.  She works with a team of managers and doctors to deliver structured workplace training, mentoring and appraisals for general and specialist trainees.

Innovative trials have clear and defined standards and safety procedures, but the precise nature of these standards and procedures may vary between trials. Standardisation combined with flexibility, and the nature of advanced therapies used in early phase trials, require the training of a new generation of clinical trial researchers. Principal Investigators need the same basic knowledge of pharmacology, trial methodology, national and local regulations and guidelines as before. They also need to have a solid understanding of human factors, ergonomics and the essentials of safety science so that they can both specify the standards needed in each trial and have the knowledge and skills to manage risk and protect patients in the rapidly evolving landscape of early phase trials.