Please login to the form below
COUCH Health recruits Rosemary Lakeru as Director of Patient Recruitment, Feasibility and Diversity
With the appointment of Rosemary Lakeru as Director of Patient Recruitment, Feasibility and Diversity, COUCH Health becomes one of the first patient engagement companies to create a senior role with a specific focus on improving diversity in clinical trials.
PRESS RELEASE
Date: Tuesday 3 November 2020
For immediate release
COUCH Health recruits Rosemary Lakeru as Director of Patient Recruitment, Feasibility and Diversity
Better patient diversity is critical for clinical trials, in order to develop the right drugs for the right patients, and to support successful drug approvals and effective marketing and communication campaigns. With the appointment of Rosemary Lakeru as Director of Patient Recruitment, Feasibility and Diversity, COUCH Health becomes one of the first patient engagement companies to create a senior role with a specific focus on improving diversity in clinical trials.
An experienced recruitment and retention specialist, Lakeru understands the importance of enrolling patients from a broader pool to better reflect the heterogeneity of the general population. "We can only create treatments that meet the needs of ordinary patients if we test them on a representative cohort of people in the first place," said Lakeru.
Lakeru brings a patient-centred approach with strategic solutions that support the vital goals of better patient support and greater diversity.
"I believe that connecting and communicating with patients, and empowering them before, during, and after their participation in a trial, can improve retention and help companies to reach their enrolment goals. I also want to improve the clinical trial process and experience for patients by making it simple, transparent, and accessible," said Lakeru.
Despite increasing pressure from regulators, clinical trials are often carried out on a largely white and male population. As an example, of 46,391 study volunteers who contributed to clinical studies of new drugs in 2019, only 9% of people involved were black/African American, 9% were Asian, and 18% were Hispanic. Women, particularly older women, are under-represented in cancer clinical trials. This results in drugs that are not fully tested in the people who will take them.
Ash Rishi, CEO of COUCH Health said: "We are excited to welcome Rosemary Lakeru. Clinical trials must become more inclusive – it’s the only way to develop effective treatments. Drug licensing and regulatory bodies are increasingly asking for evidence of drug safety and efficacy in diverse populations; the industry can no longer avoid the issue. It’s important that everyone involved with clinical research takes responsibility for tackling this issue and that we do so decisively and that is why we have taken this important step and ensuring that whenever we do any patient recruitment we ensure diversity is at the heart of what we do."
-Ends-
For more information, please contact Ash Rishi at COUCH Health on + 44 (0) 330 995 0656 or hello@couchhealth.co.
Notes to editors
About COUCH Health
COUCH Health is a patient engagement agency dedicated to improving clinical trial experiences for patients. It works with pharmaceutical, biotech and life science companies to improve patient insights, recruitment and retention for clinical trials. In May 2020, COUCH Health launched its Demand Diversity campaign for clinical trials to become more diverse and inclusive.
For more information, visit www.couchhealth.co.
Company Details
COUCH Health
Address:
Suite 2.10, Jactin House
24 Hood Street
Manchester
M4 6WX
United Kingdom
Latest content on this profile
- COUCH Health publishes report to encourage patient engagement in the MedTech sector
- Manchester, UK, 27 February 2023 — COUCH Health today announced the publication of a new report “The Power of Patient Engagement in MedTech”.
COUCH Health
- #DemandDiversity: Why cultural safety is an important step towards achieving diversity in clinical trials
- In our recent Demand Diversity research, a Black American participant said, “I wish people were more educated. Doctors are supposed to treat everyone the same, not have favourites. They need unconscious bias training.”
COUCH Health
- How do ethnic minority groups in the U.S. view clinical trials?
- This year, we decided to do the same with ethnic minority communities over in the United States (U.S.) too. Ultimately, we wanted to explore attitudes towards clinical trials from these communities, understand the barriers in participation, and determine what factors may influence people’s decisions to take part.
COUCH Health
- Three things to consider when using social listening research for patient recruitment
- We are looking at how patient research can power your patient recruitment campaign. A look into social listening follows on from this blog perfectly, offering a stronger and more authentic alternative to relying on data trends to guide your activities. So, let’s get started…
COUCH Health
- 4 ways mobile ethnography studies can elevate your patient insights
- How can we achieve more real-life, in-the-moment insights from different groups to understand their thoughts and behaviours? This is where ethnography studies come in.
COUCH Health
- #DemandDiversity: We’re calling on the clinical trials industry to include us all
- The lack of diversity in clinical trials is something we’ve spoken about time and time again. By now, you might think we sound a bit like a broken record. But, the fact is, many people still aren’t aware of the underrepresentation, especially those who don’t work in the industry. Do you think if the clinical research industry could see the people they were leaving out of clinical trials, and hear how they felt about being underrepresented, it would make a difference?
COUCH Health
