Effectiveness and variability of patient recruitment and retention practices; Tufts CSDD

While nine out of 10 clinical trials worldwide meet their patient enrollment goals, reaching those targets typically means that drug developers need to nearly double their original timelines, according to new research from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, benchmarking patient recruitment and retention practices.

Tufts CSDD said its recent analysis, based on more than 150 clinical studies involving nearly 16,000 sites, will help clinical research professionals better plan and manage clinical trials.

"Patient recruitment and retention are among the greatest challenges that the clinical research enterprise faces today, and they are a major cause of drug development delays," said Ken Getz, director of sponsored research at Tufts CSDD, adding: "The results of our recent study paint a complex picture of global practices and their effectiveness and characterize a very high level of investigative site performance risk."