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Clinical to Commercial: The Long- and Short-Term Benefits of a Physician Referral Network

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Continuum Clinical

An effective Physician Referral Network (PRN) is one of the most useful and cost-effective components of a clinical trial enrollment program. Yet many drug development companies fail to see the far-reaching benefits, often missing out on what can be an essential component of patient recruitment. The benefits of a PRN may begin during a single clinical trial, but, if leveraged and maintained, can impact recruitment for other clinical trials in a sponsor’s pipeline, and even benefit sponsors after a compound has been commercialized.

In the Short Term

PRNs produce highly-qualified referrals—patients referred from a PRN tend to have significantly lower screen-fail rates than referrals from other sources. For those studies where the doctor-patient relationship is essential, for patients with rare conditions, or when a protocol requires patients to be treatment-naïve (especially if the excluded treatment is part of standard of care for the condition, such is often the case in oncology) timing is everything. Information about your trial needs to be top-of-mind with doctors who are on the front lines of diagnosis and trusted by their patients. PRN’s ensure that you have access to those specific physicians and that your trial is presented to the right patient at the right time.

Patients trust their physicians. Whether from years of service or the vulnerability of medical need, when a physician recommends a particular treatment, patients listen. That said, physicians can’t possibly know of all the latest clinical trials available for their entire patient base. A well-developed PRN educates physicians about clinical trial options for their specific patients and manages relationships to help them offer relevant clinical trials in a timely manner.

In the Long Run

Sponsors often study a single compound across multiple clinical trials or study multiple compounds within a single indication—so a PRN remains relevant long after the initial study. If, for example, a sponsor’s pipeline is made up of pulmonology compounds, or one compound is being studied across varying pulmonology trial designs—the same PRN will be useful for recruitment.

Your Physician Referral Network is there for you when you need it—now or in the future. A dedicated team nurtures and maintains physician relationships throughout the course of a physician’s professional career, tapping into their expertise when needed.

Our engagement with one forward-thinking company who partnered with us approximately three years ago offers an example of the power of the PRN:

Our challenge was to develop a PRN for their COPD trial. Our dedicated site engagement team built a PRN that produced highly-qualified referrals with a lower screen-fail rate than referrals from media. Today, that same company has a similar need: qualified leads for their latest clinical trial in a similar indication. Despite the three-year gap, our team was able to re-activate the physician network developed earlier and engage specialists to refer patients into the new trial. Continuum Clinical not only researches and identifies the right specialists for a given trial, but maintains that relationship for years to come, ensuring the physicians remain engaged.

A PRN also helps plant a seed for the future. When physicians have early-exposure to a compound in the clinical stage, they are more comfortable with prescribing it to their patients upon commercialization. Competition in today’s pharmaceutical marketplace is steep, so early exposure to a new medication increases the potential for future recommendation.

A well-developed PRN has multiple benefits. Initially, it helps obtain highly qualified leads with significantly lower screen-fail rate, but its value is much greater. As with many drugs in development, when you are ready to enroll another trial, engaging the team that built your initial PRN will save you time and money, in addition to producing highly-qualified referrals.

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    About Continuum Clinical

    Continuum Clinical is a global clinical trial enrollment company that has been providing fact-based patient recruitment solutions since 1993. We have built and maintained long-standing relationships with pharmaceutical and biotech companies around the world, including 10 of the top 20 global Sponsors. This experience led Continuum Clinical to become the industry’s most trusted partner for clinical trial engagement, recruitment, retention, and analytics.