Science in the Triangle

Free health screenings, food and a raffle promise to draw a crowd Sept. 12 at North Carolina Central University.

There’s a reason for all the goodies. Organizers want people to stay and listen — to speakers like Dr. Robert Califf, who heads Duke University’s Clinical Research Institute; Dr. Wendy Brewster, director of women’s health research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and executives from Quintiles Transnational and PPD, two North Carolina companies that help drugmakers test new medicines.

Hosted by the Center for Information and Study of Clinical Research Participation, the public education workshops at NCCU are part of an East Coast campaign aimed at getting more people, particularly more minorities, interested in participating in clinical trials.

Event details:

When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 12.

Registration and free breakfast to begin at 9 a.m.

Where: NCCU’s H.M. Michaux School of Education, 712 Cecil St., Durham

The Triangle, home of one of the largest number of companies helping drugmakers to test new therapies, is one of four places where CISCRP is organizing the workshops for the first time. Similar events took place in the spring in Philadelphia and Baltimore. A fourth one is planned next month in Boston.

The reason for the campaign is that it’s becoming harder and harder for the pharmaceutical industry to recruit patients for the tests, which are crucial to determine whether new medicines work safely and are fit to be sold.

Contract drug research is a multi-billion-dollar business. In the Triangle along, thousands work in the industry. But recruiting and retaining patients has become a huge hurdle, delaying approval of new drugs and increasing the cost of drug development.

In the past 20 years, finding patients to participate in clinical trials has gone from 30 percent of the development costs to 60 percent, according to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development.

Patient recruitment isn’t keeping up with the rising number of clinical trials, partly because patients worry about possible drug side effects.

CISCRP was founded in 2003 by the former chief executive of CenterWatch, a Boston-based publication that tracks the clinical research industry. The nonprofit is supported by drugmakers and companies and organizations that help them test new medicines.

North Carolina supporters include Quintiles, PPD and companies conducting, analyzing and managing clinical trials. Here is a list of all CISCRP supporters.