09 Feb Patient recruitment: Can pharmacists fill both prescriptions and clinical trials?

As CVS, Walgreens, and other retail pharmacy giants permeate the clinical trial space, questions remain about the effective integration into the pharmacists’ workflow.

By Urtė Fultinavičiūtė, Clinical Trials Arena

The never-ending challenge of finding and recruiting eligible clinical trial participants continues to push sponsors to find new avenues to expedite enrollment. As decentralization shakes up traditional trial planning and execution models, formerly adjacent healthcare ecosystem players, such as pharmacies, see the clinical trial space as an opportunity, and are seen by sponsors and CROs as a potential new approach to patient identification and engagement.

Historically, the clinical research space viewed the pharmacy as a channel to educate and raise awareness within the local community. However, over time, pharmacies started to build meaningful and rich information databases about patients and their medical needs.

“The pharmacy increasingly became viewed as a place where, if we could tap that data source, it would allow us to better target individual patients or patient communities,” says Kenneth Getz, director and research professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and founder of Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation (CISCRP).

While this model is being explored more in some countries than others, it holds several benefits in clinical trial conduct, such as reaching underrepresented communities and giving access to better healthcare. Yet, as with every new approach, there are areas of potential pitfalls or challenges that might hinder clinical trials. Read more …