Janssen, a pharmaceutical company of Johnson and Johnson, established more than 99 sites across the globe to enrol the more than 716 patients needed for the study. Synexus, which is the largest multi-national company entirely focused on the recruitment and running of clinical trials at its own Dedicated Research Centres, exceeded its recruitment target by more than 50% at its Watermeyer site in Pretoria.
Synexus country manager Dr. Sanet Aspinall commented “We are often able to exceed our pharma and CRO client’s expectations as we have a very effective enrolment team to recruit patients from the large pool of people surrounding our research centres. This team has developed a sophisticated outreach programme which works closely with GPs, primary care clinics and public hospitals in order to find the right patients quickly.”
Linda Roach, the GCO Country Manager of Janssen Pharmaceuticals in South Africa acknowledged the advantages of working with a dedicated clinical research centre such as the Synexus Watermeyer site: “Within our regulatory environment here in South Africa, we need to partner with sites that can enrol quickly with quality data and can support our efforts to achieve our recruitment targets. Synexus Watermeyer site in Pretoria is one such site.
This is of particularly importance in South Africa as regulatory timelines can be slow leaving a shorter time frame in which to find these patients. Selection of the right site and infrastructure for this study has proven that, the country can not only deliver but exceed the target number of patients.”
This particular study was to enrol patients with type 2 diabetes who are inadequately controlled on glucose lowering therapy.
Synexus, headquartered in Manchester, England, is the world’s largest multi-national company dedicated to the recruitment and running of clinical trials at its own research centres across the globe on behalf of its pharmaceutical, biotech and CRO clients. Synexus now has 26 Dedicated Research Centres across the UK, Germany, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, Bulgaria, India and South Africa staffed by full-time GCP-trained investigators.
The traditional way of recruiting for clinical trials through individual doctors is still by far the most common method, despite the fact that each doctor only recruits an average of five patients per study and more than 60 percent recruit one or less. This incredibly costly model remains the norm.
