Early adopters are effectively using social media for patient recruitment and retention but in general the industry is fearful, a panelist at Patient Recruitment Outsourcing (PRO) 2011 said.
Clinical trial enrollment can be accelerated by better understanding patients and using EHRs to inform protocol design, panelists told an Outsourcing-Pharma conference.
Companies outsourcing patient recruitment in emerging markets should have more people on the ground, according to Cutting Edge Information's Shaylyn Pike.
An evidence-based approach to planning during protocol development is key to successful patient recruitment according to Joseph Kim, director of clinical operations at Shire Pharmaceuticals.
Applying a business model based on marketing theory to clinical trials can give a consistent framework for planning and managing patient recruitment, say academics.
CRO and Pharma patient recruitment efforts can benefit from social networks and online patient groups, but clarification from the US FDA is still needed.
Outsourcing-Pharma presents an interactive visualisation of clinical trial data submitted to the EMA in MAA from 2005-09, showing the number of trials, sites and patients from each country.
Finland, Brazil and Mexico recruit more patients per site than any other country where clinical trials are frequently conducted, according to EMA data.
Clinical trials in Latin America recruited 91 per cent more patients per site than studies conducted in the US from 2005 to 2009, according to EU MAA data.
Patient recruitment is boosted by health condition awareness strategies and financial incentives, according to research, but various methods of randomisation and consent design have no impact.
Patient recruiters and national regulators must learn from each other to better understand outreach tactics and how they fit with a country’s ethics and laws.
Retention strategies, trial site evaluations and dedicated budgets should be used to recruit patients to, and keep them in, clinical trials, according to research.
CRO Quintiles says Southern California Permanente Medical Group (SCPMG) partnership will improve patient recruitment and, ultimately, accelerate the drug development process.
PRA International has entered into a partnership with Oncopartners and IBPC to accelerate the planning, start-up and patient recruitment of oncology trials in Latin America.
Synexus has recruited more than 2,000 children in three months for a Phase III rotavirus vaccine study, which it believes validates its methods and demonstrates they are particularly effective in late stage vaccine trials.
CROs believe that finding the right principal investigators is the hardest part of recruitment, according to a survey that adds that 80 per cent of respondents would prefer to reach enrolment goals 10 per cent quicker than cut costs by 20 per cent.
