Many factors influence the success or failure of a clinical trial, but one of the most important elements in patient recruitment. Based on Veristat research, more than half of regulated oncology trial design studies fail to fulfill patient enrollment targets, jeopardizing study data quality and development schedules. Ineffective trial recruiting can cause late-stage trials to be delayed by several months, which increases operational costs and delays the time to develop drugs. Even then, pharmaceutical companies can increase patient recruitment in clinical trials by implementing some of the tactics highlighted below, knowing that strong patient recruitment helps develop better treatments and better solutions for patients.
Understand Patients’ Need before Recruiting
The trial design should include the patient voice to guarantee that a study fits real patient requirements. It’s considerably more difficult to attract patients if the oncology clinical trial design doesn’t have any significant endpoints. Clinical trials are marketed to patients in various ways, resulting in a variety of outcomes. Patients with chronic illnesses, for example, were less likely to enroll in a new drug or therapy trial than oncology patients or chronic/acute patients. As a result, these trials must emphasize the advantages of participating and how the experimental medication may be superior to current treatments. Inquire about how a patient recruiting firm differentiates its outreach strategies depending on the trial condition while dealing with them. When developing patient outreach materials and choosing who to target, a strategic agency will keep these patient preferences in mind.
Use of Virtual Engagement
The possibility for a patient to participate in a clinical study from home via virtual engagement has helped promote patient engagement, reduce dropout rates, and improve trial results. Virtual participation also eliminates the need for frequent clinic visits, which are costly and harmful to patients’ health. Pharmaceutical companies may find that digital technologies are the solution to improving clinical trial recruitment from the start if participation is seen as more convenient and time-consuming.
Creating a Budget
Developing a clinical trial budget strategy can aid in the tedious recruitment procedure. This can be accomplished by establishing a reasonable budget for advertising, partnering (patient recruiting service providers), providing unique patient incentives if necessary, and calculating the costs incurred if treatment is delayed, among other things. To start with, plan ahead of time to ensure that the recruitment costs are anticipated and covered. Also, when deciding on resources, emphasize site activation deadlines and real enrollment times. To accomplish efficient and successful communication and outreach, make sure to use a well-researched communication strategy. Finally, create an initial recruitment budget that considers all relevant patient outreach criteria.
The fewer challenges in a clinical trial, the better and the faster you’ll achieve your desired results. Patient recruitment is one of the major challenges, but consideration of patient needs and budgeting can help counter this challenge and make the trial more effective. It is crucial for trials to have a virtual engagement to reduce some of the burdens laid on patients. These often lead to low participation, dropout, and delayed trial results.