The COVID-19 virus has significantly changed the way the world operates. It has caused unprecedented interruptions to many industries and businesses around the globe, and clinical trials are no exception. New guidelines have been issued by the FDA regarding clinical trials, which could have a significant impact on study enrollment and patient retention.
Over the past several weeks, many clinical trials have had a suspension or delay in enrollment due to concerns of the spread of the pandemic and the safety of those involved. While the enrollment of some trials has been paused, some trials that have been actively enrolling are continuing to do so.
Whether the trials are actively enrolling or pausing enrollment, clinical trial sites, sponsors, CROs, and other key stakeholders should continue to move forward with efforts that lead us to needed therapies and treatments.
With no approved vaccine or treatment available for this virus, the global pandemic we are all facing has raised awareness around clinical trials and their importance considerably. The pharmaceutical industry can leverage this raised awareness to continue recruiting for both paused and currently enrolling studies.
We are all longing for the day when things return to “normal.” It may not be the normal we all have previously known, but things will operationalize again. Sites will reopen, and study volunteers will be needed. To use the time we have now most effectively, we recommend the following strategies that will keep your studies “ready to go” when life returns to “normal.”
Many sites have the patients they need within their database, but they do not always have the time to dedicate to thorough chart reviews. While things may be somewhat slower at sites, they can spend time going through charts to find eligible patients.
Sites can send messages out to their patient database, either via email or through their patient portal if they have one. Use this avenue to provide patients already enrolled study updates or send alerts to potential patients informing them of studies taking place at the site.
National advocacy organizations have many available outlets for communicating with their members. Spend time building relationships with the organizations specific to your study’s therapeutic area or indication and ask them to share your study information with their following. They are a trusted source of information for patients, and an invaluable resource to your study.
Many are at home due to shelter-in-place orders from their government. They are plugged into their TVs, their radios, and their phones. They are spending hours on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms. Advertising can be a very effective tool for getting your study in front of the right audience.
For patients already enrolled in studies, it will be important to keep them engaged and retained throughout the study’s duration. Consider registering them into a patient-centric platform that will send them important study information and automated visit reminders.
Working through this process now will put your study in a place for optimal enrollment success when things normalize. Planning now will make for a smooth transition and will keep sites focused on your study.
Have studies facing this situation and need support with these activities? CSSi can assist you with outlining and implementing a recruitment strategy!
Gene and cellular therapy are novel treatment methods that are avidly being studied in a realm of different indications including oncology, neurology, rheumatology, pediatrics, and more. As of 2023, there are over 1,500 gene/cellular therapy trials actively enrolling with a majority being in Phase 1 and Phase 2 stages.
Read More
LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersexual, Asexual/Agender, + Additional Sexualities and Identities) make up a significant portion of the population: around 8% of the total United States population and an estimated 10% of the global population.1,2 Trends show an increased likelihood of identifying as LGBTQA+ in younger generations such as millennials and Gen Z.
Read More
Now that we have a flood of new adults entering the scene, they are eligible to participate in many clinical trials. These new adults aren’t their Millennial elders and are far removed from Gen X and the Baby Boomer generations, so new recruitment tactics and strategies need to be implemented to gain their interest.
Read More
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many clinical trials were halted or stopped altogether due to the inability to recruit and screen patients. Much of this was due to a centralized study set up, where patients were required to appear in person for screening and secondary study visit activities. As the pandemic progressed...
Read More
Marketing and advertising are an art form. And as is true of all art, it evolves and adapts to the world around it (And enter the famous question: Does art imitate life or does life imitate art?). Reaching patients for clinical trials is quite a task. Creating awareness, providing education, and garnering true interest is a multi-pronged approach that requires an in-depth understanding of the needs and communication...
Read More
The health and well-being of all persons regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender is integral to public health. As a nation, the United States is slowly improving and becoming self-aware of the maladaptive behavior towards its minority citizens both past and present.
Read More
Clinical trial recruitment has been understandingly difficult for the past fifteen months. Isolation and quarantine have kept patients (not to mention site and trial staff) from being able to undergo appropriate screening and enrollment measures. Because of this immense issue, many trials have been paused (or worse, stopped all together).
Read More
We have all heard these statistics before: 85% of all clinical trials fail to recruit enough patients and 80% are delayed due to patient recruitment problems.1 This makes selecting the right patient recruitment partner such an important part of setting your study up for success.
Read More
Clients often ask if we are able to provide recruitment reporting and metrics. What’s our answer? Yes, we’ve been doing it for years!
When you hire an agency to support your patient recruitment and retention efforts, you deserve to know what they are doing and if it is working.
Read More
Patient recruitment is often a time-consuming and high-cost step in completing your clinical trials. Your marketing team will have to develop the correct study message and a strong call-to-action to get people motivated to see if they prequalify. You must strategically target your patient population and generate interest in participation among this audience.
Read More
The COVID-19 virus has significantly changed the way the world operates. It has caused unprecedented interruptions to many industries and businesses around the globe, and clinical trials are no exception. New guidelines have been issued by the FDA regarding clinical trials, which could have a significant impact on study enrollment and patient retention.
Read More
As you begin the patient recruitment process for your study, it can be tempting to put all of your money towards one method. You place all bets on digital advertising because that generated the most referrals during your last study. What happens if digital doesn’t perform for you this time? It’s best to spread your advertising budget out over a number of recruitment methods. This gives you the ability to truly test what is most effective.
Read More
Identifying and implementing ways to increase diversity in clinical trials is a growing topic in the industry. Almost 40 percent of Americans belong to a racial or ethnic minority, but roughly 80-90 percent of participants in clinical trials for new drugs are still disproportionately Caucasian.1
In order to make sure drugs and treatments are safe and reliable to all people, there needs to be a better representation
Read More
You’ll often be faced with more work than there is time each day. Meeting with patients, scheduling appointments, fully informing patients at time of consent, training study staff, conducting study procedures, working with sponsors, advertising for the study and recruiting patients... the list goes on and on.
Read More
We all see others do it, and we probably experience it ourselves it every day.
Watching videos and tv shows on devices other than the TV in the family room, catching up on your favorite sitcom on-demand because you weren't home to watch it at 8pm when it originally aired, or streaming videos on YouTube to pass time. As the years go by, technology and media are changing – and so is how we are using them.
Read More
Each year, $1.89 billion is spent on patient recruitment for clinical trials.1 With a 30% average dropout rate across all clinical trials, many pharmaceutical companies are spending a large amount of money to recruit patients who aren't staying enrolled in their trials.
Needed study data for regulatory submission and the overall success of a clinical trial depend largely on study participants fulfilling their roles...
Read More
One of the top places sites look for (and sponsors depend on) when recruiting patients for clinical trials is their database of patients. It has been a go-to method of recruitment for years. In a recent study, however, only 27% of sites report being fully satisfied with their current recruitment methods, including site database searches.1
Read More
Within the world of patient recruitment for clinical trials, delayed timelines and unforeseen budget issues are often the norm. But, what if just a bit of strategic planning up-front decreased the possibility of these barriers?
Read More
As a research study is in its early planning phase, sponsors and CROs dedicate a significant amount to identifying and selecting the research sites who have the ideal database of eligible patients for their study.
Read More
As a sponsor, CRO or site, there are a surplus of patient recruitment companies you can turn to when you need help finding patients for your studies, and that number grows higher every day. Most of these companies offer a niche service, but very few are a full-service, global recruitment agency like ours.
Read More
We've all heard it before: "traditional advertising is dead." But if that were true, why are we still seeing commercials on TV, hearing ads on the radio, and seeing billboards on the highway during our morning commute?
Because it's not true! Traditional advertising is still very much alive and used by some of the largest companies worldwide.
Read More
If you’ve been following along with our past blogs, you have gained insight into:
You're going through the checklist of everything needed to get the awareness efforts for your study up and running:
You have:
There are about 93 million Americans searching online for information related to a health-related topic, with 63% of those individuals looking up a specific disease or medical problem. In fact, looking for health or medical information comes high on the list as one of the most popular activities people do when they are online.
Read More
Let's imagine two different scenarios:
A: You're sitting in a doctor's office, and you see a poster for ACN-053-2414, a clinical trial testing medication for acne in adults.
B: You're sitting in a doctor's office, and you see a poster for the Face It Acne Research Study, a clinical trial testing medication for acne in adults.
