 announce an alliance to jointly offer their services to pharmaceutical companies and other industry stakeholders interested in enhancing patient recruitment and retention for ongoing and upcoming clinical research studies.  Both companies have a long-standing commitment to raising awareness of trials among patients, as recently underscored by PatientsLikeMe’s award from the Institute of Medicine for its new clinical trial feature and by BBK’s research, such as its widely-cited “Will and Why” surveys of global patient attitudes toward participation in clinical studies.
 
“There’s great synergy in our two companies working together,” says Joan F. Bachenheimer, founder and CEO of BBK Worldwide.  “With our clinical trial solutions and PatientsLikeMes patient engagement platform, we’ll be able to create a steady stream of interested and eligible clinical trial participants for clients with the greatest depth of members’ health information in the industry.”
 
To help expand its targeted patient population for recruitment purposes, the two companies will launch national and regional multi-media campaigns to help drive patients to sign up for PatientsLikeMe, where there are currently 100,000+ patients with more than 500 conditions. While patients will benefit from sharing their health data and experiences on the site, BBK and PatientsLikeMe will offer industry partners tiered access to interested patient members who meet their trial criteria. Trial sponsors also will be able to leverage the PatientsLikeMe platform and the BBK technological solutions and communications expertise to establish powerful retention programs.
 