• by Kate Kaye , July 15, 2004

Websites abound with allergy medication ads, and email inboxes practically overdose on spam, promoting Viagra knockoffs. But before all those drugs get to market, patients must get to the clinical trials. A new advertorial section hosted by washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.MSNBC.com has launched in an effort to help pharmaceutical companies recruit people for clinical trials.

In collaboration with The National Institutes of Health (NIH), The Clinical Trials Center features a searchable database of clinical studies and related information provided by publishing firm Thomson CenterWatch. The new site section, accessible through the Health Sections of washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.com, was created to help build awareness about clinical trials and what they entail. Three sponsored subsections offer regularly updated listings of studies with both short-term and long-term needs for participants, as well as answers to frequently asked questions about trial risks, benefits, costs and the like, provided by NIH Clinical Center. Advertising on washingtonpost.com and Newsweek.com will promote the new section.

"The big challenge for the healthcare industry is to do clinical trials and do them in a cost-effective manner," explains Steve Stup, vice president of sales at Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, who says the Web publisher is in discussions with advertisers regarding future development of similar advertorial sections.

With each day clinical trials delay the development and launch of a drug, pharmaceutical firms risk losing between $600,000 and $8 million, according to a May 2004 Cutting Edge Information report. The complexity of the clinical development process, which involves study sponsors, contract research organizations, patient recruiters and patients, tends to hold up the process, which on average can last 30 percent to 42 percent longer than expected.

Considering such factors as high expenses, limited budgets, competitive research and the never-ending race to be first to market, pharmaceutical firms and their vendors always need bodies. While they continue to use traditional routes to recruitment like broadcast and print media, physician referrals, outreach screenings and contact through clubs and organizations, the Web has become another place to attract potential patients.

The Thomson CenterWatch database has been online for ten years, and currently lists 14,000 industry-sponsored clinical trials, according to Dan McDonald, VP Thompson CenterWatch. Pharmaceutical companies and recruitment firms pay to have studies featured in the database which is free for patients to access without providing personal registration information upfront.

The extent to which a particular demographic is desired for recruitment "determines how much the Web is involved," comments Ken Wallace, President of Clinical Solutions, a clinical trial marketing communications company. Typically, the younger the patients needed, the more Clinical Solutions employs the Internet, says Wallace, who uses major portals, Internet Service Provider sites and health sites to get the message out. He adds that the Web is also a good place to attract family members who can pass along trial information to potential patients.

Search engine marketing is also a component of many online clinical trial recruitment campaigns. Search Google for "stomach pain" and an array of related health information listings result, as does a text ad promoting a Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. clinical trial for dyspepsia research. More than 102,000 searches on keyword term "clinical trial" were conducted in June on Overture-fed sites, according to the search firm.

"Companies are now starting to build sites dedicated to trials," observes CenterWatch's McDonald. Those websites are often found by people conducting searches on particular ailments, which can enable trial recruiters to connect with qualified patients more readily.

The Internet works well to recruit "patients coalesced around Web communities," like groups supporting patients with AIDS or Diabetes, suggests Linda Wolf, Leader of Emerging Markets and Services at healthcare industry marketing company BBK. She estimates that use of the Internet for clinical trial recruitment was at its peak about a year ago. Now, she says, "We've seen a drop off and a recognition that [the Internet] can't be the only way to reach patients; it has to be part of an integrated approach."