How much do research labs waste on fragmented tool stacks?

In the world of oncology, systematic reviews are the undisputed gold standard for evidence synthesis. They are the bedrock upon which clinical guidelines are built, treatment protocols are updated, and new research frontiers are identified.

But for elite academic medical centers, these reviews represent a deepening crisis. As the "State of the Science" evolves at an exponential rate, the traditional process of evidence synthesis has become a financial and operational bottleneck that threatens a center’s most prestigious credential: NCI Cancer Center Designation.

We are no longer just fighting cancer; we are fighting the sheer volume of literature required to prove institutional merit.

The Hidden Cost of the "Gold Standard"

While the value of a high-quality systematic review is clear, the labor required to produce one is often hidden in departmental budgets and "personnel time." However, the data is stark. According to peer-reviewed research (Michelson & Reuter, 2019), a single systematic review consumes an average of 15 months and costs between $40,000 and $140,000 in labor alone.

For a Principal Investigator (PI) or a Cancer Center Director, a $140,000 price tag isn't just a number—it represents a massive diversion of resources:

• Personnel Time: 1,200 to 1,600 hours of combined research coordinator, postdoc, and PI time.

• Opportunity Cost: The equivalent of 3 to 4 full-time research coordinators.

• Grant Equivalent: The consumption of 2 to 3 NIH R01 grants just to summarize existing literature.

The NCI Designation Stakes: The 24-Month Clock

This financial drain is compounded by the rigorous requirements of the Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG). To earn or maintain NCI Designation, centers must demonstrate scientific excellence and transdisciplinary collaboration every five years.

The timeline for these applications is brutal. Preparation typically begins 24 months in advance, requiring thousands of pages of documentation to justify research programs and prove catchment area impact.

When a single systematic review takes 15 months to complete, a center’s renewal application is at risk before the writing even begins. If your team is stuck in a manual "screening and extraction" loop for over a year, you aren't just losing money, you are losing the window to provide the high-impact evidence synthesis the NCI demands during site visits.

Why Oncology Teams Are at the Edge

Oncology research teams face the most complex literature landscape in modern medicine. Because treatment paradigms like immunotherapy and CAR-T therapies are ever-changing, the cost for an oncology review frequently exceeds $200,000 when including:

• Granular biomarker subgroup analyses.

• Multi-arm clinical trial comparisons.

• Real-world evidence (RWE) synthesis.

• Regulatory submission requirements.

The sheer velocity of precision medicine means that by the time a 15-month manual review is finished, the "State of the Science" has already moved on, leaving centers with outdated data for their CCSG narratives.

The Research Fragmentation Problem: Why Your Tool Stack is Slowing You Down

The final hurdle is what we call The Research Fragmentation Problem. While labs spend six figures on labor, they often spend an additional $10K+ annually on a "Frankenstein" stack of disconnected tools.

Researchers jump between PubMed for searching, Covidence for screening, Excel for extraction, Endnote for citing, and Word for writing. None of these tools communicate. Every time a researcher manually moves data between platforms, hours of productivity and the potential for NCI-level rigor vanish.

Moving Toward a Research Operating System

We believe that oncology researchers shouldn't have to choose between clinical rigor and financial sustainability. To maintain NCI Designation and handle the velocity of modern oncology data, teams are moving away from "best-of-breed point solutions" toward a comprehensive Research Operating System. By establishing a Single Source of Truth, RoadRunnerAI eliminates workflow friction, allowing researchers to reclaim 5+ hours per week and focus on high-value discovery rather than tool management.

Metric	Fragmented Tool-Stack (Point Solutions)	Unified Research OS (Integrated Workflow)
Annual Budget Impact	$10,000+ per team spent on 5-7 disconnected tools.	40-60% cost reduction via platform consolidation.
Literature Review Velocity	15 months on average to complete one review.	50-80% time savings (reclaiming 5+ hours/week).
Labor Efficiency	1,200 - 1,600 hours of manual screening/extraction.	20-25% productivity increase through workflow optimization
Data Integrity	Manual & Disconnected: Data is moved manually between PubMed, Excel, and Word.	Single Source of Truth: Upload once; data flows through search, synthesis, and writing.
Compliance Standard	High Risk: Version chaos and lack of provenance tracking.	FAIR Compliant: Built-in reproducibility and institutional traceability.
Team Dynamics	Siloed: 64% of organizations struggle with tool integration and "tool overload".	Collaborative: Purpose-built for distributed research teams and co-authoring.

Ready to reclaim your research velocity? RoadRunnerAI is helping oncology teams at leading institutions cut literature review time by up to 80%. Ensure your evidence is ready for the next site visit. Schedule a demo today.