Economy Causing Pain? Enroll in a Clinical Trial!

This month Forbes notes an interesting up-side for clinical development coming out of a down economy – individuals feeling a pinch in their wallets increasingly interested in participating in paid studies.

Studies that pay for enrollment are generally for health volunteers, and are typically performed at dedicated Phase I / clinical research units. Such units often have databases of subjects in their catchment area – including their “professional patients”.

But healthy volunteer studies, as with much of clinical research, was seeing a trend moving outside of the United States. The ability to recruit a more diverse sample of subjects at a reasonable cost and with good speed will quickly sum to reverse that trend.