Clinical Trials Awareness Week Begins Today

Week focuses on clinical trials enrollment challenges and the need for greater participation in clinical research

  WASHINGTON – The Coalition for Clinical Trials Awareness (CCTA) announced that May 2-6 is Clinical Trials Awareness Week, which it is co-hosting with other key stakeholders to increase awareness about clinical trials and highlight challenges presented by low enrollment in clinical trials.   Clinical Trials Awareness Week will include a Twitter town hall at 12:00pm EDT on Thursday, May 5 (#CTAW2016), roundtable discussions hosted by Quintiles in North Carolina, Kansas, and Ohio, and the release of a public awareness campaign model. All are aimed at raising public awareness about clinical trials and the need for greater participation.    CCTA also released a new

white board video

today to coincide with Clinical Trials Awareness Week, “Stalled Clinical Trials: The Awareness Solution.” The video outlines how a federally-supported public health awareness campaign can increase participation in clinical trials, similar to how the “Share your Life. Share your Decision” campaign in the1990s increased organ donations. Like organ donation, participation in clinical trials benefits society as a whole.   Last October, CCTA released a

white paper

: “Share your life. Share your decision.”: How the Campaign to Increase Organ Donations Provides a Model for Public Health Awareness Efforts.”   Clinical trials are an essential step in getting medications approved by the FDA and onto pharmacy shelves for patients. Currently, there is a severe shortage of clinical trial participants, which slows the process of approving medications and moving them to market for patients. One study reported that 11% of clinical trials fail to enroll even one participant.   Consequently, many groundbreaking, life-saving medications remain stuck in the approval pipeline. With increased participation in clinical trials, however, patients and care providers will have greater access to approved medications.   The Coalition for Clinical Trials Awareness is a nonprofit group of health care providers, patient advocates, medical researchers and industry and government stakeholders working together to increase public awareness about the importance of clinical trials participation.   For more information about Clinical Trials Awareness Week visit

www.cctawareness.org

.     Dr. David Charles, Coalition for Clinical Trials Awareness: “Raising awareness and increasing participation in clinical trials is critical to getting new therapies approved and into the hands of physicians and patients. However, because of a shortage of clinical trials participants, the progress in approving new medical breakthroughs is delayed. As researchers, clinicians, patient advocates, and government work together to raise awareness, participation in clinical trials will increase and patients will be able to access new therapies currently stuck in the development pipeline.”