GREAT FALLS, Va., Aug. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Spotlight Health, Inc., has launched a new clinical trials support service, Spotlight Research(TM), designed to streamline recruitment of investigators and patients for clinical trials. The new program aims to provide significant savings to pharmaceutical and government sponsors of clinical trials, while eliminating enrollment and retention obstacles that are major sources of costly delays in the drug approval process.
The foundation of Spotlight Research’s approach to clinical trial recruitment is a network of support that comprises pharmacy benefit management companies, pharmacies, medical education providers, and physician provider organizations. These collaborations enable Spotlight Research to reach large numbers of potential participants for clinical trials, and to match them with physician researchers conducting studies in their locales.
“If clinical trials recruitment were a patient, it would be seriously ill, if not on life support,” said Jonathan Sackier, M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.S., F.A.C.S., founder and chairman of Spotlight Health. “I am confident that, much like a breakthrough medication, Spotlight Research’s revolutionary data- driven program will be the vehicle to restore the practice of clinical trials recruitment to good health, bringing speed, efficiency, and savings to trial sponsors, and hope for patients in the process.”
Spotlight’s Chief Medical Officer Stephen Shoop, M.D., cited the inefficiencies of the current haphazard approach to clinical trials recruitment. “Eighty percent of clinical trials don’t meet their scheduled endpoints on time, and failure to recruit the required number of patients is far and away the largest contributor to those delays. The costs to the sponsors -- in terms of additional funds required to support the trials past their anticipated end dates, and the delays in bringing products to market -- run into the billions of dollars. The cost to people in ill health awaiting a vital new medical therapy that has been stalled in its development is, sadly, beyond mere dollars.”
Senior vice presidents Len Sherp and Rich James, two recent additions to the Spotlight Health executive management team, are spearheading the Spotlight Research program. Both Sherp and James came to Spotlight from Matthews Media Group, Inc. (MMG), an Omnicom-owned company specializing in clinical trials support, where they served as managing vice presidents for business development. Together they bring a combined 25 years of experience in support of clinical research outreach for pharmaceutical, government, and academic initiatives.
“Mention patient recruitment and people immediately think of expensive -- and generally ineffective -- newspaper, radio, and television advertising campaigns,” said James. “We think Spotlight’s methods should make media advertising the recruitment tool of last resort.” Added Sherp: “Spotlight Research’s ability to harness the power of information will help make clinical trials recruitment in the twenty-first century a truly twenty-first century enterprise.”
Spotlight Research is a division of Spotlight Health, a full-service health communications and marketing company with offices in Los Angeles, California; Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the Washington, D.C.-metropolitan area. Physician-founded and led, Spotlight Health is an industry-leading provider of medically authoritative content and breakthrough celebrity marketing for health and health-related issues. Its clients include leading pharmaceutical and medical device companies in the United States and abroad, and the roster of prominent Americans and international spokespersons it represents spans the worlds of entertainment, athletics, politics, and the arts.
Spotlight Health, Inc.
CONTACT: Alex Bickel of Spotlight Health, Inc., +1-703-757-2914
