Racially diverse clinical trials: A new patient-led legacy takes root

The differing health outcomes from COVID-19, depending on sufferers ’ ethnic background, is a salutary reminder of the uneven, and often downright unfair, experience of some ethnic groups when it comes to healthcare.  It further underlines pharma ’s need to do better to make clinical trials more racially diverse and so improve the efficacy of medicines for these under-served groups, and in particular people of Black, Asian and minority ethnicity (BAME).  This is by no means a new problem and, to put it bluntly, pharma ’s approach so far hasn’t worked.  There are many reasons for the lack of representation of BAME people in trials. An important one that pharma must acknowledge and work to address is a lack of trust owing to poorly orunethically conducted trials in the past in developing nations, says Kunal Patel, Medical Director, of medical educator iheed “Word spreads fast when you ' re found to be unethical in these regions, it has a long-lasting legacy effect, ” says Patel. “It has left a shadow of suspicion, which makes recruiting for trials today harder.”  There are other big issues as well as that of trust. Starkly differing levels of access to healthcare, particularly in the US and low representation of BAME people in medicine and science are structural inequities that will take time to redress. Barriers to participation But a range of other practical barriers are much more amenable to solutions today. These include financial and related cost...
Source: EyeForPharma - Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Source Type: news