Senior research manager Rachel Barnes shares insights into how LDA Research recruits niche respondents and hard to reach patients worldwide for our clients
Over the last few years, there has been a noticeable trend in medical market research towards more granular research into more rare conditions. Here at LDA Research we regularly receive requests for studies involving incredibly niche respondents and hard to reach patients. We pride ourselves on our ability to reach respondents whom other companies may struggle to recruit and we have a proven track record in delivering these unicorn respondents for our clients.
In the last year, some examples of more niche professional respondents we have successfully recruited include academic, pharma and biotech respondents making purchasing decisions in life science reagents; clinical trial managers and senior scientists in private pharmaceutical companies; lab heads and data analysts; pathologists; hospital purchasers and insurance specialists. We have delivered these respondents not only in the US and the UK but across a broad geographical range from Europe to Japan.
Looking at patient recruitment, in the last year we have successfully delivered projects with patients with such diverse and rare conditions as Myasthenia Gravis; sepsis acquired kidney injury; vitiligo; alopecia; patients on peritoneal Dialysis; and patients using external self-catheterisation. Again, we have succeeded in recruiting these rare respondents across a large range of countries.
One of the reasons LDA Research is so successful in recruiting these hard-to-reach respondents is that we are tenacious in our approach. We utilise multiple methodologies to support our efforts and collaborate with our colleagues weekly to share ideas to support each other’s projects. Alongside our proprietary panel of respondents, we have our Rare Disease Network of patients; we utilise desk research to find contacts; we use Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media platforms; we form good links and relationships with Patient Actions Groups (PAGs); and we utilise referrals from our vast network of contacts. Where one method is not working, we think outside the box and pivot to alternative methods to ensure that we are utilising every avenue available to meet our clients’ expectations.
Furthermore, we ensure that we maintain excellent communication with our clients throughout the project, from start to finish. This is particularly important when hunting for unicorns – sometimes these hard-to-reach respondents can take longer than expected to find and it is paramount that our clients are kept abreast of our efforts; projects may occasionally not quite run to the timelines planned but through our collegiate approach, we always deliver and keep our clients informed of the progress. LDA research go above and beyond to deliver and don’t stop until the unicorns have been found!
