Educating patients and physicians about drug studies will boost enrollment, according to the organization behind the new Clinical Trial Guide website.
The website—clinicaltrialguide.com—which launched this week, is designed to make the process of learning about clinical trials less stressful and more accessible to potential trial participants, their families and physicians.
"There is huge lack of understanding about trials and that is a huge reason why enrollment and recruitment for trials is so low. If we can hack the problem through education, it will change the landscape of clinical trials completely," Clinical Trial Guide CEO Rivka Szafranski told Fierce Biotech.
To that end, the website aims to provide the information that a patient would need to assess whether they should join a trial, what questions they should be asking, what the various steps of the trial are, and how they can navigate the process, Szafranski said.
“Most trials do not provide this to patients so patients are left trying to research trials on clinicaltrials.gov which is not meant for the laymen consumer and is filled with technical jargon that most cannot understand,” she said.
The wider goal is to increase awareness, participation, acceptance of and interest in research and the role it plays in bringing new medicines to patients in need. Clinical Trial Guide plans to expand the site and add new features, including the introduction of a system that allows sponsors and CROs to interact with the site and, for example, list studies.
Szafranski said the organization is looking for CROs and pharma companies to collaborate as well as financial backers to move forward.
“Currently, we are privately funded, but as we roll out additional features we are looking to increase funding and begin conversations with investors," she said.