Rethinking Clinical Trial Marketing

In my past life at large communications firms, we rarely worked on marketing for clinical trials. They were seen as low-budget initiatives that ran from a fixed playbook, and many companies were content to leave most of the patient recruitment to their trial sites. This never entirely made sense to me: clinical trials are at some level the actual product of pharmaceutical brands. Patients swallow a pill or take an injection only because they want the benefit promised by the trial results.

The need to think more rigorously about trial promotion was cemented for me when Ratio worked with a biotech company developing a hematology drug. Their phase II trials were done before their key big pharma competitor, but their phase III was hampered by challenges getting their sites initiated, and their competitor leapt ahead. Only when we put more heft into building awareness of the trial did enrollment start to speed up.

I'll be honest though: we could have gone further. We didn't really do much with social media for several reasons, but that channel would have potentially been valuable. so I was interested to see some companies, including Moderna, are starting to leverage social to boost their trial enrollment. For those who are skeptical of this approach, or who resist putting significant promotional efforts into clinical trial awareness and recruitment, I'd like to make the case why it is critical for success in today’s healthcare environment.

First, the proliferation of therapeutic options in many categories means there is lower perceived unmet needs among potentially eligible patients. In categories like oncology, the last decade has transformed diseases that had almost no effective therapies into crowded categories with treatment options across multiple lines. This reduces the urgency for patients and their physicians to seek out trials, and makes it harder to identify those that most need new options or would be willing to consider something unproven. Reaching patients with more innovative trial promotion can better identify those who are more eager to take part and are poorly served by existing therapies.

Trial promotion, if done right, can also raise the credibility of the sponsoring company. This is particularly effective with outreach targeted at physicians who may refer patients to trial centers: hearing about the innovative work a company is doing can create a great first impression that bears fruit later when the company goes back to detail that physician about their now-approved therapy. It also provides an early opportunity to engage with advocacy groups, which can be particularly important in rare and pediatric diseases where the support of advocates is critical to success.

A final point is strictly about the competitive environment: once companies start to work more proactively to identify and recruit patients, it shrinks the eligible patient population for everyone else's trial. If you are in an area with multiple similar trials ongoing, being less aggressive in how you promote your trials compared to your rivals can see your timelines slow to a crawl as patients are diverted to your competitors' research.

Because trials are a partnership with the sites conducting the research, approvals for promotions are often somewhat challenging and timelines can be longer even than marketing efforts for approved drugs. So if you believe a more modern approach to clinical trial marketing can advance the success of your brand, start early and think creatively.