In Focus: Low awareness rates hindering advances in research

Patient awareness of clinical trials and resignations across the industry have slowed and prevented the continuation of research, which could hinder treatment options for patients, an ophthalmic research company has warned.

Sally Tucker, optometrist and vice-president at Ora Europe, told Optician that clinical research was complicated and required coordination between different groups over a large amount of time.

Recruiting a sufficient number of patients and having well-trained, specialised staff members to execute protocols were needed to run trials effectively, Tucker explained.

‘In the absence of either one of those two elements, progress immediately comes to a halt, and promising therapies never get the opportunity to move further down the pipeline for development. Right now, we’re looking at a situation where we may be limited in the number of patients and qualified staff members available to participate in clinical trials, and that could be a huge problem moving forward,’ Tucker said.