Over the years, I’ve been involved with many clinical trials that could be considered to be ‘in rescue’ as a result of not recruiting a sufficient number of patients in a timely manner.

Indeed, for some organizations, this seems to be the default approach, seemingly being factored into the strategy from the outset.

Which seems to be a particularly inefficient way of planning a recruitment campaign, as things would likely work out better if the plan was to ensure a good number of patients being recruited from the outset, rather than anticipating a slow start followed by a scramble to get the numbers up later down the line.

It’s an odd mindset that believes that the kind of activities required for enhanced recruitment can only be implemented once a trial needs to be rescued.

With surely a better way of going about things being to adopt those strategies at launch in order to achieve targets sooner.