Baby Boomers get Involved in their Health Care

Radiant Research, (radiantresearch.com), a comprehensive clinical research company, that provides Phase I-IV clinical drug development services to the biopharmaceutical industry, would like to grow a number of their sites to include more people as volunteers who help advance science through their involvement with various sites.

Michael Miller, marketing manager for Radiant, said the company wants to increase their traffic to their study sites in a smart and strategic way. Radiant has 45 research study sites now and Miller said they are the only organization in the country that owns all of its own physical sites.

As for volunteers participating in research studies, Miller said it is a mixed bag.

“Some studies are tougher to recruit for than others and yet I get emails all the time from people saying, ‘Where do I go to sign up?’ We’re slowly making inroads in terms of people wanting to participate as baby boomers age. They’re a lot more involved in their own health care than any previous generation,” said Miller. “We think we’re going to increasingly see people online doing our research, getting involved, to wanting to participate in clinical studies, and so forth and hopefully we’ll continue to see that increase. As the Baby Boom sort of took off people have been paying attention to that demographic and that group as it grew up and matured.”

Miller said the baby boomers have been marketed to all their lives.

“They’ve had more discretionary income and more people than ever before and there’s more and more opportunities for them to be involved in because of the internet and the media giving so much attention to health care issues. I think that is a combination of why they’re so involved in their own health care, unlike any other generation,” he said.

Miller said Generation X will be the next big group after the baby boomers that will be watched closely by experts. He said as far as health care goes people are becoming involved in their own health care as needed and the lines distinguishing how one demographic group is involved compared to another in research studies are fading away because of all the opportunities to get involved.

Those interested in participating in Radiant’s studies can sign up on their website and Radiant has research studies all over the country.

“Most people are going to want to participate closer to home,” said Miller. “The benefits for volunteers are that it pushes medical research forward in the prospect of either helping themselves or helping their children and grandchildren. We also compensate people for their time and travel depending on the study. That’s a big reason why some people participate.”

Miller, whose wife also works for a company that does clinical research, said people are always going to have money for health care.

“That is one thing that is non-negotiable,” he said. “We also have opportunities for people who are perfectly healthy to participate in Phase I studies which are early in the development process.”

On May 4th Radiant Research, founded in 1992, announced the grand opening of their state-of-the-art Phase I Clinical Pharmacology Unit in Dallas to include a 120-bed clinical research facility.

“We are excited to be expanding our early phase capabilities by opening a new freestanding research unit,” said Michael Lester, CEO of Radiant Research.

Dr. Michael Davidson said the new facility gives the capability to conduct complex and challenging early phase clinical pharmacology studies for his biopharmaceutical customers.

Early phase studies test how new drugs are absorbed and processed in the body. 600,000 interested study participants are in Radiant’s national call center database and more than 1,000 nationally recognized research professionals are involved with the company. According to Radiant’s web site, they are in the top five percent nationally in performance and have conducted over 3,000 research studies.

For more information, call 425-468-6200 or email info@radiantresearch.com.