I’m sitting at my desk thinking to myself: Why don’t I see many ads trying to recruit patients for clinical trials? “Many” is actually an overstatement. I rarely see them. Anywhere. And that’s a problem.
I’m fairly healthy, but I have some issues. I’m slowing balding. I suffer from heartburn. Sometimes, I have debilitating back pain. I’ll stop there. There are millions of other people who have these problems, too, so why aren’t we, the people who aren’t actively seeking to join a trial, being bombarded with ads to participate?
We know that most clinical trials are delayed because they can’t recruit enough qualified subjects. But what’s being done about it? I understand that it’s expensive, difficult to reach targeted audiences, and so on. I get it, most companies, such as CROs, can’t spend the big bucks for outreach campaigns. It’s just not feasible.
But, where does that leave us? Not in a good place, to say the least. Should sponsors step up to the plate and do more to help support clinical trial recruitment programs by leveraging traditional and digital methods, just like they’re doing for their approved products? JUBLIA is a great example. Now that it’s on the market, I see non-stop commercials for toenail fungus medication. But why didn’t I see recruitment efforts for that particular trial or similar ones?
At the end of the day, it’s the pharmaceutical companies who stand to benefit most from drugs that makes it big, so maybe they should be investing more in patient recruitment. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a small price to pay for the chance of success and the opportunity to help humanity.
