SHANGHAI, May 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- inVentiv Clinical Trial Recruitment Solutions (iCTRS), created to accelerate trials, explained at the 6th Annual DIA China Meeting how China’s digital ecosystem can be used to speed clinical trial recruitment.
Ramita Tandon, senior vice president and General Manager of iCTRS, spoke before 1,400 attendees on “Enhancing Clinical Trial Quality with Internet Technologies: Fueling Clinical Trial Recruitment through an Analysis of the Digital Ecosystem.” A related white paper, “e-Recruiting: Using Digital Platforms, Social Media, and Mobile Technologies to Improve Clinical Trial Enrollment,” is available for download from the company’s website at http://www.inventivhealth-ictrs.com/newsroom/publication-library/.
“Around the world, pharmaceutical companies are missing out on some of the best available digital tools to reach potential patientsand China is no exception,” asserted Tandon. “Digital patient outreach campaigns geared to the culture and interests of individual patients can supplement traditional recruitment methods to increase patient awareness and support more enduring engagement.”
In China, as in other parts of the world, competition for patients is increasing. According to ChinaBio, difficulty in recruiting patients now accounts for 56% of trial delays in the country, a fact that belies the pervading perception that China offers easy access to treatment naive populations. Currently, recruitment is performed primarily through physician referrals to just a few treatment centers.
Tandon noted, “The most sophisticated companies are using innovative and cost effective methods for recruitment that go beyond reliance on investigators. They capitalize on the fact that Chinese patients are very reachable electronically.” Recent statistics on the digital connectivity of the Chinese prove that point:
- 590 million people were using the Internet in China in mid-2013, making this the largest national population online anywhere in the world (China National Information Center)
- 55% of Chinese use the Internet, with 58% pf users online daily (Pew Research Global Attitudes Project)
- Cell phones are ubiquitous, with 95% of Chinese owning cell phones and 37% owning smartphones (Pew Research Global Attitudes Project)
“The iCTRS approach goes well beyond the traditional to focus on the patient, whether in Boston or Beijing,” Tandon said. “We analyze what drives people to participateor more importantlywhat prevents them from doing so. We know what keeps people in trials, and the digital ecosystem is then leveraged to carry the most compelling messages.”
iCTRS has built novel capabilities to recruit and retain patients, tapping expertise across 23 businesses that have been working in drug development, commercialization and patient and physician engagement for decades. inVentiv Health is the only company in the world that can both develop and fully commercialize products for the life sciences industryand has done more of if than anyone else in the industry.
In China, inVentiv Health’s office includes experts from iCTRS, inVentiv Health Communications and a range of other commercialization services.
About inVentiv Health
inVentiv Health, Inc. is a life science knowledge and services company purpose-built for the new healthcare marketplace. inVentiv has created a new model by converging a vast range of essential services to fully align with our client’s development and commercialization goals. With more than 12,000 employees supporting clients in 70 countries, our global scale and broad expertise make us an attractive strategic partner for companies seeking to get medicines to patients in a complex operating, regulatory and reimbursement environment. inVentiv Health’s clients include more than 550 life sciences companies, including all 20 of the largest biopharmaceutical companies in the world. inVentiv Health, Inc. is privately owned by inVentiv Group Holdings, Inc., an organization sponsored by affiliates of Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P., Liberty Lane Partners and members of the inVentiv management team. inVentiv Health transforms promising ideas into commercial reality for the financial success of our clients and the delivery of better treatments to patients worldwide. For more information, visit www.inVentivHealth.com.
SOURCE inVentiv Health, Inc.
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