Towards Patient Preferred Trials

The need to reform the clinical trials process with the patient in mind is becoming ever more apparent. Given the expense and time it takes to find and retain suitable trial candidates, making a trial scientifically rigorous is no longer enough. It must also be compatible with a patient ’s lifestyle.   Participants in clinical trials are not numbers on a spreadsheet. They are customers, consumers, patients and people with complexities, preferences and nuances. Increasingly they are demanding more choice and more involvement in their treatment journey.  New technology that enables pharma to digitise trials and make them more efficient and tailored to individual patients is one way the industry is making trials more patient centred. High touch as well as high tech But technology alone won ’t be enough, warns Kelly McKee, head of patient recruitment, rare diseases, at Vertex Pharmaceuticals.  “We cannot just keep throwing the latest and greatest nominal technology at the problem and think we’re going to solve it,” she says. “If we are going to get to a place in the industry where clinical trials are preferred by patients and are considered to be a choice in their care regimen, we really need both a high touch and a high tech solution.”  Global head of patient recruitment at ICON, Gretchen Goller agrees patients must be at the centre of everything. “If we are really going to be patient-focussed, we need to be asking patients how they want to be engaged w...
Source: EyeForPharma - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news