By Allison Proffitt 

 

August 14, 2013 | Study Scavenger and CenterWatch are partnering to provide sponsors, contract research organizations (CROs), research centers and patients a mobile solution to their clinical trial needs.

 

Over the past five years, worldwide mobile app use has grown at a rate of 251%, outpacing the growth of stationary internet use by an astounding factor of 15. Study Scavenger hopes to capitalize on that trend by bringing clinical trial information to subjects’ smart phones. Study Scavenger offers a bilingual smartphone app that allows subjects to search for clinical research studies that meet their health, travel and financial needs. 

 

The partnership with CenterWatch will expand the resources that Study Scavenger can offer to its users. CenterWatch launched the Clinical Trials Listing Service (CTLS) in 1994 with the sole mission to provide patients and healthcare providers a central location for finding clinical trials. Today, this service is considered the largest online database of industry-funded global clinical trials. 

 

"Centerwatch is the premier global clinical trial listing service.  Centerwatch does an amazing job in promoting clinical trials and research subject education on their website", explained Kerri Weingard, CEO of Study Scavenger.  "The alliance between Study Scavenger and Centerwatch allows these web-based studies to be viewed on a smartphone mobile app.  In this way, potential research subjects can search for new clinical studies when on the go and when its convenient for them." 

 

Study Scavenger is a free app available in both the iTunes and Android app store. Potential volunteers can search for research studies by location or perform an advanced search, which allows patients to enter their age, zip code, health conditions, distance willing to travel and requested stipend to locate clinical studies meeting their personal, health, and financial needs. They can contact study sites directly from the app and get more information when available. 

 

For pharmaceutical companies, Weingard expects the partnership between Study Scavenger and CenterWatch to help optimize the millions of dollars spent on patient recruitment advertising while providing motivated patients the ability to find studies that meet their personal needs.

 

“The [CenterWatch] service reaches a highly targeted and interested patient community via a wide range of distribution channels—patient eAlerts, social media, collaborative relationships with health associations and much more,” said Joan Chambers, COO of CenterWatch in a statement. “We’re very excited about this partnership, as the app serves as a new distribution channel for patients and healthcare providers to learn about and potentially participate in clinical trials. The app, combined with our wide range of channels, reaches a broader audience ultimately serving the overall clinical trials enterprise.”

 

Currently the app is available in English and Spanish, but Study Scavenger is expanding to include Mandarin, Hindi, and Arabic, Weingard said. She expects the translation to be complete by the fourth quarter of 2013. The company is launching several social media and marketing campaigns to raise awareness about the app so more users download it.