Walgreens Launches Clinical Trial Patient Recruitment Service

Walgreens has entered the clinical trial business and has launched a service to provide pharmaceutical companies patient recruitment and enrollment services. Walgreens will leverage its pharmacy and patient-authorized clinical data to match diverse patient populations with trials across a range of disease areas based on race, gender, socioeconomic status and location.

Patient recruitment and enrollment remain challenges in clinical trials, further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic Nearly 80% of trials fail to meet their enrollment goals in the stated timeframes, often contributing to costly delays, according to a Walgreens press release. leverages owned and partner digital and physical assets, including select Health Corner and Walgreens will leverage its own and partner digital assets to engage patients for possible clinical trial participation.

Ramita Tandon

“Walgreens is addressing common challenges around access, recruitment, retention and engagement in clinical trials and improving the overall clinical trial experience. With our established pharmacy presence across the nation, combined with our vast foundation of real-world insights and enterprise-wide health capabilities, we will pioneer a comprehensive solution that makes clinical trials more accessible, convenient and equitable,” Ramita Tandon, chief clinical trials officer, Walgreens, told Formulary Watch.

The pharmaceutical industry has been using technology advances and analytics to help find patients for clinical trials. “But we still need to further diversify clinical-trial populations so that we can improve patient access and health equity,” Tandon said. “At the same time, the overall coordination, continuity, engagement, and experience all play a role.”

Walgreens Boots Alliance has made investments in CareCentrix, a home-centered care company, and the specialty pharmacy Shields Health Solutions, which will also support new approaches for clinical trials patient recruitment, particularly for specialty indications. Walgreens will also build on its own analytics to provide real-world insights that can support drug development. It will deploy a compliant, validated, and secure decentralized clinical trial platform with the support of principal investigators and clinical research staff to support trial recruitment.