| Julie Ross at Essential® gives her perspective on what can be done to empower patients to seek information on clinical research and ultimately take part in medical advances by participating in trials
A well-publicised debate still rages regarding the value and effectiveness of patient or subject recruitment and retention programmes in clinical trials. The consistent delay in patient enrolment is a global issue and is being compounded in Europe by the EU Clinical Trials Directive (CTD). But pharmaceutical and biotech companies in the affected member states should not get discouraged. There are many proven strategies that go unexplored which lend support to successful recruitment and retention programmes. A well designed patient recruitment programme can be the key to educating local communities for participation and to rejuvenating the ability of the countries covered under the CTD to regain their important role in the clinical research domain.
RESEARCH IN EUROPE
What is the clinical research marketplace like in Europe today and how does it compare to that in the US? The European market is comparable to the US on many levels when it comes to clinical research. For starters, there is data that shows similar findings in terms of patients’ willingness to participate in trials, general public perceptions of clinical research, and costs for failing to meet enrolment numbers in a trial.
As it relates to patient recruitment and retention, however, Europe appears to be where the US was more than 10 years ago. A decade ago, little to no information was being directly communicated in the US to potential subjects or the marketplace about clinical research or trials available. Furthermore, pharmaceutical sponsors were losing millions of dollars each day because they could not recruit or retain a sufficient amount of patients to participate in a trial to meet the FDA’s requirements. |
