A thoughtful patient recruitment strategy could avert clinical trial delays

Global pharma R&D expenditure is expected to increase 4.5 percent to $177.6 billion in 2017, with U.S. accounting for about $75 billion, according to R&D Magazine.

Patient Recruitment and Retention (PR & R) is an important step in the drug discovery process and about 20 percent of clinical trials are terminated due to things going wrong in this stage.

Recruitment delays in clinical trial range between 11-16 percent across all phases with a typical PR & R cost being 1-15 percent of the trial budget. 

Delays in recruiting patients for clinical trial not only affect the drug’s speed-tomarket, but also affect prospective patients’ timely access to crucial medicines.

In a mid-to-large sized pharma company, PR & R typically falls within the ambit of procurement organization. Given the importance of this crucial link in the drug discovery process, sourcing teams are tasked with picking the right supplier besides careful budget planning.

With more than 40 percent of PR & R being outsourced to CROs, Patient Recruitment Organizations (PROs) and Site Management Organizations (SMOs), supplier selection acts as major criteria in the success of trials within the established timelines.