Whether you’re considering your first clinical trial or you’re a seasoned Covance volunteer, there are tons of reasons to opt for one of our shorter studies! Some of our upcoming studies involve as little as a 5 night stay and one follow up visit, and can be completed from start to finish within a couple of weeks. Now is a great time to do something quick which will have a lasting impact.
Some Reasons to Love our Shorter Clinical Trials:
1 – Minimal Commitment
One of our volunteers recently told me he prefers short clinical trials because ‘when they’re done, they’re just done!’
The duration of our studies varies massively. A residential stay at our clinic can last for anything between 1 and 31 nights. Even studies with a shorter inpatient stay can be extended by outpatient visits. All of our studies will involve at least 1 follow-up appointment, where we will take a few samples and see how you’re feeling now that the medicine has left your system. In some cases, volunteers are required to return to the clinic for several outpatient visits within the space of a few weeks; at other times, you might need to attend just 3 or 4 outpatient visits stretched over the space of a few months. The payment for a study with multiple outpatient visits will be higher, but needless to say, it can take a bit of forward-planning and organisation to commit to this kind of clinical trial.
For short clinical trials like this one and this one which are currently recruiting, volunteers are only required to visit the clinic 3 times – once for a screening check-up before the study, once for the residential stay and once for an outpatient visit. And you’ll receive your study payment on that last visit. Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam!
2 – They Work Well For Workers
Surprisingly, a high percentage of our regular volunteers are also in full time work. Unsurprisingly, they aren’t always able to take a fortnight off for a long residential stay, or a day off here-and-there to travel to Leeds and attend outpatient visits over the following weeks. A study with 4 or 5 days stay and one or two outpatient visits is a whole lot easier to accommodate. Look out for residential stays over weekends and bank holidays – you might not even have to take more than a couple of days off work!
Me and volunteer Mike T discussed the ins-and-outs of balancing studies with full time work in this blog.
3 – Short Clinical Trials are just as important!
Making any really important medical breakthrough takes years. It can be 15 – 20 years before a newly discovered medicine passes all phases of testing and can be released on the market. But that doesn’t mean that long studies are the only ones with real value.
It might seem that we can’t tell an awful lot about a drug within a few days. But when several groups of volunteers participate in quick studies, we are able to answer vital questions including:
- Does this work better when given as a pill, or as an injection?
- Should it be taken on a full or an empty stomach?
- What is the ideal dosage of this drug?
- How quickly is it broken down by the body?
- How much of it is absorbed by the bloodstream?
We use this information to develop new solutions for some heavy-hitting, painful, debilitating and life-threatening diseases.
Right now, we’re recruiting healthy volunteers for 5-night stays testing potential treatments for gout and diabetic kidney disease, bladder dysfunction and cystic fibrosis. In 2016, one of our quickest studies was for a potential new cancer treatment. These studies may be small, but they are mighty!
If you think you can commit to one of our short clinical trials, and you’d like to earn from £100 per day, apply online or call us direct on 0113 394 5200.
The study that caught my eye had a three-night stay and checked in on a Thursday – meaning that most of it fell on the weekend and I wouldn’t be giving up precious holiday. I called the recruitment team who caught up with my medical history since my last trial and booked me in for a screening appointment. Once I’d passed screening, I was invited to check in to the residential part of the study along with 11 other volunteers. I was surprised that many of the others were at a similar age and stage to me – I’d expected to see mostly students, but because this was a shorter study and it fell over half term, many of the people I met were full-time workers.
After my appointment, I felt more relaxed about the study drug. But the thing that really put the tin hat on it was watching Channel 4’s 
I suppose people often associate cancer treatment with hair loss – but I don’t have much up top anyway, so I wasn’t really worried about that! We were told that the drug might potentially cause a change in hair colour, and I remember joking with one of the nurses, trying to guess what colour it might go! White? Bright orange? It might actually be a benefit if it turned your hair a really nice colour!