Acurian, a full-service provider of global patient enrollment and retention solutions and a subsidiary of Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD), has launched a new consulting offering to aid pharmaceutical sponsors in advance strategic planning for clinical trials enrollment. Acurian Consulting Services provides patient-centric, data-driven insights that help drive protocol design, patient enrollment feasibility, site and country planning, CRO selection and budgeting for central recruitment.

Acurian Consulting Services leverages Acurian’s patient-centric global platform, PatientPulse, to garner both qualitative and quantitative clinical trial insights from patients. The patient perspective is uniquely highlighted, both retrospectively based on millions of data points, and prospectively through large patient surveys and personalized interviews.

Acurian’s feasibility consultants have access to the company’s 100-million-household database and more than 17 million pre-screened study candidates to project how a sponsor’s protocol and study design will play out in terms of enrollment accrual rates, site performance and patient participation.

“With Acurian Consulting Services, we are encouraging sponsors to think differently,” said Roger Smith, Acurian’s senior vice president and general manager. “By engaging in early strategic consulting, they can gain patient insights to plan later phase trials in a more innovative way. Our patient-first feasibility inverts the traditional site-first planning model and gives sponsors confidence to develop enrollment plans with fewer sites—without sacrificing certainty of speed, budget and quality. A smaller site footprint is more efficient and eliminates the need to over-hire sites.”