Patient and investigator recruitment are considered to be the top rate limiting factors in the progress of a clinical trial. While the willingness to participate in clinical trials has increased among the physician community, patient recruitment is still a challenge. Pharmaceutical organizations leverage their existing relationship with the physicians and enroll them to conduct clinical trials. Internet has proved to be of great help in recruiting medical professionals.
However, patient recruitment has been a major challenge. Slow patient recruitment and retention of patients has caused great concerns while conducting clinical trials. Such a scenario contributes to lengthening of the clinical trial timeline resulting in increased costs. Increase in per patient cost has also enhanced the complexity of the issue.

If a company does not have presence in the country, it proves to be a Herculean task to recruit patients and physicians. Building relationship with the medical fraternity and then recruiting them is time consuming and eventually results in expensive trials.