Patient Recruitment Goes High-Tech

ABSTRACT

Clinical trial patient recruitment is arguably the most difficult aspect of pharmaceutical development, because it involves a variety of factors beyond study sponsors' control. The aggregation of data across 80 hospitals and 20 systems, for the purpose of understanding patients, doing feasibility studies, or engaging in decentralized recruitment, is the trend we're seeing." Nimita Limaye, PhD, is the vice president of research for the life sciences R&D strategy and technology division at the International Data Corporation (IDC), a market research and advisory firm specializing in the technology industry and headquartered in Boston, Mass. Limaye says the rise of social media-based patient recruitment has opened the door for sponsors and investigators to mine real-world data and to give patients a more central focus in research.