It’s Time to Take Drug Trial Participation Seriously

January 9, 2015

(New Scientists) – But developing drugs is excruciatingly expensive – and increasingly so. The cost of bringing a new compound to the market is now around $2.5 billion, twice as much in real terms as it was a decade ago. One of the costliest parts is recruiting and retaining volunteers to test the drug in a clinical trial. Around three-quarters of trials are delayed by problems with this process. Most trials over-recruit by up to 50 per cent to compensate, but the drop-out rate is still so high that only 1 in 20 volunteers end up generating useful data. The result: wasted time, effort and money.