Lucrative Drug Trials Prompt Regional Hospitals to Join Forces

Small hospitals need money. Drug companies need patients for tests. Both sides say they’ve found a solution.

Regional hospitals across the U.S. are banding together to make it easier for pharmaceutical companies to use their facilities for clinical trials, a strategy that could boost revenue and give drugmakers increased access to patients.

Geisinger Health and five other local health systems in New Jersey and Pennsylvania have formed a consortium to increase participation in drug trials. A group of rural hospitals in North Dakota has ramped up its partnerships in the past two years to do more clinical trials. And in Ohio two cancer centers have partnered to expand trial accessibility.

“As a group we’re stronger than just one,” said James Brazeal, Geisinger chief administrative research officer. “We’re able to leverage that so we have more of an ability to participate, so that we can attract some of the trials that we couldn’t attract before.”