• The Journal of KAIRB
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.33-42
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• 2023

In the conduct of multicenter clinical trials, multiple reviews by multiple Institutional Review Board (IRB) result in unnecessary duplication of efforts, delays and increased expenses of the trials, placing unavoidable burdens on not only investigators and sponsors but also IRBs. During the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic periods, as the need of multicenter clinical trials for its therapeutics and vaccines increased, a centralized IRB became more important than before in order to efficiently conduct the multicenter trials without unnecessary multiple reviews. Accordingly, government-supported central IBR as a new centralized IRB has launched to foster multicenter clinical trials while to avoid unnecessary reviews and delays and to reduce burdens of all stakeholders. However, there are still barriers to be overcome and problems to be solved in the central IRB. In this review, we introduce background and history of the central IRB and try to propose some strategies or solutions against the barriers and problems.