Marketing and clinical trials: a case study

Using methods of analysis drawn from management studies, this paper presents a structured assessment framework or reference model, derived from a case analysis of the MRC's CRASH trial, of 12 factors that may affect the success of the marketing and sales activities associated with clinical trials.The case study demonstrates that trials need various categories of people to buy in – hence, to be successful, trialists must embrace marketing strategies to some extent.The performance of future clinical trials could be enhanced if trialists routinely considered these factors.Results from randomised controlled trials (RCTs) make an important contribution to improving patient care. Some trials recruit a large number of patients and involve the collaboration of many doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers around the world. Because trials (especially large trials) can involve a substantial commitment of time and money, it is essential that they address important questions and use rigorous scientific methods. More recently, however, it has been recognised that good management and effective marketing are also essential to enable sufficient numbers of participating centres and patients to be recruited so that the study has enough statistical power [1]. This paper reports a case study of a novel application of a marketing approach from the world of business to a single clinical trial in order to develop a reference model for use in other trials.Businesses strive to find customers and encourage them to buy what is on offer. Clinical trials strive to find doctors and patients and encourage them to sign up. Thus they face similar challenges and may need to adopt similar approaches to achieve their goals.Clinical trials progress through distinctive stages, including study design, obtaining funding, finding participants, collecting and processing data, interpreting the results, and reporting. In some stages of a trial the key requirement is to do good science. However, in others