Alberta clinical trial recruitment campaign expands across Canada

A campaign initially launched in Alberta that aims to recruit people into ongoing clinical trials is expanding to include the entire country.

A campaign initially launched in Alberta that aims to recruit people into ongoing clinical trials is expanding to include the entire country.

The Be the Cure campaign aims to educate people on how they can take part in clinical trials, in hopes of advancing medical research to find cures for various diseases.

“One of the major barriers to recruiting people to clinical trials is that members of the public don’t always know when a trial is taking place,” said Emily McDonald, an associate professor of medicine at McGill University Health Centre who is part of the Be the Cure campaign.

“That can mean that it takes a long time for a study to complete, and sometimes that can delay us finding novel tests or treatments for rare diseases or cancers or infections.”

Be the Cure originally started in Alberta and is now becoming pan-Canadian. A list of trials is available online for people with diseases to search for trials in their area.

The initiative also aims to recruit more diverse people to clinical trials.

“(That way,) in the end, when the drug becomes available, we know that the drug is safe and effective for a larger population of people,” McDonald explained.

“We might be able to tell if the medication is safe in older adults, for example. Or we might be able to tell that the drug is safe in men and women.”