Addressing the Barriers to Patient Participation in Clinical Trials

RARECast

A significant obstacle to getting patients to participate in rare disease clinical trials, particularly children, is the burden placed on patients and their families to address the logistical challenges of arranging travel, fronting expenses, and completing paperwork for reimbursement. In fact, nearly two-third of patients and caregivers say travel stopped them from participating in a clinical trial. Clincierge seeks to remove the burden of participation in clinical trials on patients and caregivers by managing the logistics of travel and reimbursement, as well as assigning coordinators to them during the life of a study. We spoke to Scott Gray, co-founder and CEO of Clincierge, about the burdens placed on patients who want to participate in a clinical trial, how Clincierge works to eliminate those, and the impact its work has on recruitment and retention of patients in clinical studies.