Drug development commonly encounters a bottleneck at the clinical trial stage. Patient recruitment is notoriously challenging, with many studies facing costly delays, but for rare disease trials, these challenges are often exacerbated. Without the right support, trials risk early termination, a potentially devastating result for those who already have few treatment options available. Many trial sponsors and sites look to new technology to overcome these barriers, but now, more than ever, we need human connection to help secure studies’ success and ensure innovative treatments reach those who need them.

For the life sciences sector, rare disease is somewhat of a paradox. To be classified as such, the general consensus among countries is that there must be extremely low prevalence within their territories. And yet collectively, hundreds of millions of people live with a rare disease worldwide, making it a decidedly common occurrence.