Plaque Psoriasis

120

Conditions

700

Trials Completed

Countries

Increase in Randomizations

17600

Patients Enrolled

38% More Patients Randomized Per Month: Accelerating Enrollment in a Phase 2b Plaque Psoriasis Study

At a Glance

29 randomized patients

contributed through AutoCruitment

Enrollment target

reached ahead of the original eight-month recruitment plan

38% increase

in average patients randomized per month

28% of total study

enrollment delivered through AutoCruitment

17 sites

randomized at least one AutoCruitment patient

The Challenge

A pharmaceutical company conducting a Phase 2b plaque psoriasis study needed additional recruitment support to keep enrollment moving across its study sites.

The study was evaluating an investigational treatment in adults with moderate-to-severe chronic plaque psoriasis. The broader study included approximately 40 centers across Europe and North America, with AutoCruitment supporting direct-to-patient recruitment in the United States and Canada.

The original recruitment plan anticipated AutoCruitment providing patient referrals over an eight-month period. Accelerating patient flow while maintaining sufficient patient quality was critical to helping the study reach its enrollment target sooner.

A Narrow Patient Pool

Finding patients with psoriasis was only the beginning. Participants had to meet several clinical severity requirements, including:

Chronic, stable plaque psoriasis
PASI score ≥12
Body surface area involvement ≥10%
Eligibility for systemic antipsoriatic treatment or phototherapy

The exclusion criteria narrowed the population further. Patients could be excluded based on previous treatment failures, unstable disease, active infections, certain forms of psoriasis, significant medical conditions, laboratory abnormalities, or previous exposure to specific systemic therapies.

This created a recruitment challenge: the campaign needed to generate enough patient volume while identifying candidates likely to meet a highly specific clinical profile before they reached the sites.

The Approach

AutoCruitment deployed a direct-to-patient digital recruitment campaign designed around the study’s protocol-specific eligibility criteria.

Rather than relying on broad psoriasis interest alone, the recruitment journey was built to progressively identify patients who were more likely to meet the study requirements before referral.

The strategy included:

Protocol-specific digital targeting to reach adults living with plaque psoriasis across the U.S. and Canada
A custom online pre-screener incorporating study-specific inclusion and exclusion criteria
Additional patient screening and engagement before referral to participating sites
Individualized patient outreach plans based on site needs and recruitment capacity
Ongoing site engagement and project management to help maintain patient flow throughout the campaign

The online screener alone filtered out 55.61% of candidates who did not meet key study criteria, helping reduce the number of clearly ineligible patients progressing further through the recruitment process.

The Results

With AutoCruitment patients included, average monthly randomizations increased by 38% compared with the enrollment rate sites were achieving through their existing recruitment sources.
That additional patient contribution translated into an estimated 2.67 months saved on the study's enrollment timeline.
The accelerated patient flow helped the study reach its enrollment target ahead of the original eight-month recruitment plan.
The impact extended across the site network, with 17 participating sites randomizing at least one AutoCruitment patient.
AutoCruitment contributed 29 randomized patients during the 2.5-month campaign, representing approximately 28% of total study enrollment.

When enrollment closed, 93 additional AutoCruitment patients were still actively progressing through the recruitment funnel, demonstrating the recruitment momentum generated during the campaign.

By combining large-scale patient outreach with protocol-specific pre-screening and site-level recruitment support, AutoCruitment helped accelerate patient flow and support the study in reaching its enrollment target ahead of plan.

By combining large-scale patient outreach with protocol-specific pre-screening and site-level recruitment support, AutoCruitment helped the study increase enrollment without simply sending more unqualified patient volume to sites.

Learnings for Future Studies

Patients consistently struggled to accurately self-identify how much of their body was affected by plaque psoriasis. Because body surface area involvement was a key eligibility requirement, self-reported estimates made it harder to determine which candidates were likely to meet the study’s severity threshold before reaching the site.

This kind of self-reporting gap is common in trials with visible severity criteria, and it’s a pattern we’ve seen play out beyond this one study.

In response, AutoCruitment has developed a video pre-screening capability for studies with similar requirements. A live video conversation with a registered nurse or trained patient engagement specialist allows real-time visual assessment of body surface area involvement, clarifies ambiguous patient responses, and flags candidates unlikely to meet severity requirements before they reach the site.

Building this qualification step in earlier is intended to improve referral quality and reduce the screening burden already carried by participating sites.

Ready to Accelerate Enrollment for Your Next Dermatology Study?

Complex eligibility criteria can quickly narrow an already competitive dermatology patient population. AutoCruitment combines direct-to-patient recruitment, protocol-specific screening, and site engagement to help study teams identify qualified patients and keep enrollment timelines moving.

Talk to our team about your study