Recruitment, Site Reimbursement Threaten Medical Research in US

Low subject recruitment and site reimbursement could jeopardize the future of clinical research in the U.S. “All the trials suffer from these problems,” Steve Come, medical director of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Cancer Clinical Trials Office, said. The No. 1 problem is low subject recruitment, except in trials dealing with “sexy” drugs, which Come defines as potentially life-saving therapies only available through a clinical trial. As for reimbursement, investigators receive the same pay for treating subjects as they do their regular patients, even though covered procedures typically take two to three times longer in a clinical trial, Come said.
Clinical Trials Advisor