Nick Karrasch - How To Conduct A Clinical Trial Without Breaking The Bank
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Today’s guest Nick Karrasch shares his advice for conducting clinical trials without having to spend massive amounts of money. The contract research industry typically caters to deep-pocketed pharmaceutical companies, but by taking a creative approach, even smaller companies who focus on weight loss and supplements can run research studies in order to bolster their marketing claims.
How To Launch a Cost-Effective Clinical Trial
Say you’re launching a weight loss company and want to prove to potential clients that your program creates profound results. How do put together some official research around the program that would be accepted by the medical community without breaking the bank?
One important thing to keep in mind is that while small trials aren’t particularly valid from a research point of view, companies can still effectively use the results to make claims for marketing purposes.
There are a couple of ways to go with this approach:
- Work with research sites that specialize in running supplement studies, as opposed to those that cater to large pharmaceutical companies. Resist the temptation to work with a university, as this type of research often gets tied down and takes longer than it should, which adds up to additional cost. Smaller, commercial-minded research bodies tend to be more efficient and your best bet.
- Another approach is to simply run the trial through your own health centers. This cuts down significantly on cost because you don’t have to invest in recruiting patients, which often poses the biggest challenge in conducting a clinical trial. Working with the patients at your own health centers also significantly reduces the costs that arise from patient visits and testing.
Of course, working with your own patients at your own health centers raises conflict of interest concerns from a research standpoint. This perception is pretty much inevitable, but because you’re using the results for marketing purposes, it doesn’t matter a great deal – you’ll still have your results, and that’s what’s important.
Set realistic expectations for time and expense of the trial
The cost of a research study typically depends on the number of participants. Medium-sized studies usually cost around $100,000, but again, the cost can be reduced when you find a contract research organization that works with supplement companies who have smaller budgets.
Conducting a study for a 60-day weight loss program would probably take about six months, broken down into the following phases: 1) design the study, 2) set up the research site and train your researchers, 3) recruit the patients, 4) conduct the study, 5) analyze the data.
Clinical trials don’t have to be exclusively available to pharmaceutical companies. With some creative thinking, research and legwork, even holistic-minded healthcare professionals can take advantage of research studies to promote the success of their programs and products.
