While patient recruitment receives a lot of attention due to the significant investment required to ensure enrollment, patient retention in clinical trials is essential for both economic and scientific reasons. With patient recruitment accounting for nearly 25% of overall trial costs, retention becomes critical to managing costs and obtaining the data needed for regulatory submission.

Unfortunately, depending on the trial phase, on average 30% of patients enrolled at the beginning of a study drop out before completing the trial.2 Poor patient retention not only impacts the ability to run the trial, it can also delay the study and cost the site time, money and resources.