Modernizing Patient Recruitment for Accelerated, More Impactful Clinical Trials and Always-On Intelligence

Between 2012 and 2022, inflation-adjusted biopharma R&D spending rose by 44%, from $170 billion to $247 billion, yet novel drug approvals in the U.S. remain flat, averaging 43 each year. Today, the cost to develop a new therapy can be as high as $2.8 billion, and only 13% of assets entering Phase 1 trials ever reach the market.

Increasingly complex trials—due to factors like site availability, patient recruitment, and regulatory requirements—are slowing down timelines, inflating costs, and complicating trial outcomes. Clinical research has always been a high-stakes endeavor: like drilling for oil, many dry holes must be dug before striking a “gusher”—if one is ever found. Biopharma companies need to recover the costs of their dry holes, which helps explain why the new medicines that do get to market are so expensive.

The Challenges of Patient Recruitment and Retention

With only about 3% of patients and 5% of physicians currently participating in clinical research, it’s no surprise that patient recruitment and retention are among the biggest hurdles in clinical trials. These challenges can consume up to 32% of a trial’s budget and cause 80% of trial delays. Slow or incomplete patient enrollment disrupts trial timelines, leads to underpowered studies, requires additional sites, and can even result in trial termination. Effective site selection—choosing the right sites and patients at the right time—is critical to overcoming these obstacles.

These challenges underscore the urgent need to modernize clinical research by bridging healthcare and life sciences, leveraging EHR-agnostic, real-world data, and applying advanced, cloud-powered AI to make better, faster decisions. At Oracle, we’re committed to transforming clinical research to accelerate the development and accessibility of breakthrough treatments—a theme we explored with global leaders at our recent Oracle Health Summit in Nashville .

Oracle’s New Solutions for Modernizing Patient Recruitment and Site Feasibility

To address the challenges of patient recruitment and site selection, Oracle has developed Site Feasibility and Patient Recruitment Cloud Services . These new tools leverage Oracle’s real-world data assets, life sciences applications, and AI-powered capabilities to help pharmaceutical companies, CROs, health systems, and researchers select optimal trial sites and recruit patients faster.

With permissions from participating health systems, these services use deidentified Electronic Health Record (EHR) data and AI to pinpoint the most viable sites for trials. By integrating comprehensive real-world data with modern technology, we enable sponsors and CROs to make smarter site selections and streamline patient recruitment.

• Site Feasibility Service: This tool helps trial designers identify optimal sites based on factors such as the estimated volume of eligible patients, the number of competing trials, and historical site performance. By leveraging deidentified EHR data from health systems, Oracle empowers researchers to choose sites with higher chances of recruitment success.?
• Patient Recruitment Cloud Service: This service helps to simplify and streamline each site’s recruitment process and accelerate study timelines by providing investigators with an easy way to enroll patients who meet trial inclusion criteria within the Oracle EHR. Investigators are informed about eligible and partially eligible patients, enabling quick follow-up actions, such as a lab test or questionnaire, to complete eligibility. This approach improves retention by tailoring appointments to each patient’s unique needs, reducing no-shows and dropouts.

Introducing Analytics Intelligence for Life Sciences

To further support and accelerate life sciences innovation, Oracle has also introduced Analytics Intelligence for Life Sciences . This cloud-based, AI-infused analytics and data workbench allows biopharma companies, CROs, regulators, and health systems to gain customized insights using deidentified, real-world data from EHRs (including “Omics” data). These pre-built capabilities open new opportunities for investigating complex research questions and assessing patient outcomes over the long term. Developed in coordination with Oracle’s globally renowned Research Services division, it merges cutting-edge technology with deep domain expertise. This collaboration brings together top life sciences experts, including the oncology researchers behind CancerMPact , to deliver a groundbreaking platform that advances insights and therapies with unmatched speed and precision.

Our goal is to enable clinical trials that won’t have to end when a drug receives approvals. Our platform will allow researchers to follow patients over years or decades to discover potential new indications and track both expected and unexpected results. We believe this will accelerate the timeline for clinical research, enable real-world assessment of patient outcomes, and reduce the cost of trials and thus also new medications.

Building an Intelligent, Continuously Learning Health Ecosystem

Oracle Health and Life Sciences is dedicated to advancing medical progress from bench to bedside—and back again—by creating a continuously learning, connected health ecosystem. Through partnerships with like-minded organizations, we’re driving the convergence of life sciences and healthcare to build a future that meets the needs of all stakeholders, with the patient always at the center. To learn more about our vision and the exciting advancements discussed at the Oracle Health Summit, read my recent recap . We look forward to continuing this journey together—and we hope to see you next year!