Chiltern launches new clinical staff recruitment booster
expanding its services with a new solution aimed at helping clients
boost their clinical research staff recruitment process - an
increasingly difficult task due to the growing number of clinical
studies being conducted.
The Californian company, through its Resourcing Solutions division, is introducing a specialist group dedicated at providing experienced study site coordinators to clinical sites. "With an ever increasing number of clinical trials, it has become more and more difficult for investigator sites to recruit highly qualified clinical research personnel," said Cathy Gooch, associate director of Resourcing Solutions. "The lack of available clinical research or study site coordinators at the sites can severely hinder the recruitment of patients into clinical trials." Recently published research into clinical research recruitment has shown that delays in enrolling qualified investigators or in working with investigators who fail to produce their target number of patients can significantly cost pharmaceutical companies in lost product sales - indeed, pharmaceutical companies have estimated that it costs $35m (€26m) for every day that the product is not on the market. With a rise in competition for the time and attention of clinical investigators, pharmaceutical companies and CROs are particularly motivated to learn how to win the support of clinical investigators who will deliver patients to their studies and add credibility to their developing products, according to a report from Best Practices. Chiltern hopes its new services will help pharma companies and CROs do exactly that by offering them solutions tailored to their sites' specific recruitment needs. "We identify the candidates through a rigorous screening process and present only the most qualified candidates for consideration," said Gooch. Sites can then choose to use these staff on an hourly-paid or permanent basis, according to their needs at that time, she added. "It had become very apparent that Investigator sites needed greater flexibility in order to manage personnel fluctuations and meet their recruitment goals, most specifically during the enrollment phase of clinical studies" said Linda Christmas, global head of Resourcing Solutions for Chiltern. "Our new resourcing solution does provide the sites with an answer."
