Judging a study-search vendor: count enrollable studies, not feasibility questionnaires

If fewer feasibility questionnaires are reaching your site, or answering each one takes more work than it used to, it helps to separate volume from fit. Protocols can ask for more procedures, tighter eligibility and more data, and a long questionnaire for a study you could never enroll is a cost, not a chance.

That changes how you should judge anyone who promises to find studies for you. A vendor can always point to volume: "We sent you more feasibilities this year." That number can hide a problem, because every questionnaire takes staff time.

The better question is simple: how many studies did this service bring that your site could genuinely enroll?

Why questionnaire counts mislead

A feasibility questionnaire can be a useful first step, but it doesn't establish fit or guarantee selection. Counting them rewards the wrong thing:

• Volume is easy to produce. Sending poorly matched opportunities shifts the assessment work to your team.
• Poor-fit questionnaires have a real cost. Coordinator time spent on a study you can't enroll is time taken from the studies you already run.
• Overstated answers follow you. Overstating capacity to stay in the running can lead to a selection you can't deliver on, and unrealistic enrollment commitments can damage sponsor relationships.

What "enrollable" means in practice

A potentially enrollable study fits your PI's experience, your documented patient access, your facilities and staffing, and its recruitment window. Going ahead still depends on acceptable budget and contract terms, the required approvals and the sponsor's authorization to start. Before you count a study as a win for any vendor, check it against six questions:

1. Protocol fit. Is it in a therapeutic area you run, could your PI and sub-investigators run this protocol, and does your PI have the time to oversee it?
2. Procedures and equipment. Does your site have what the protocol requires, such as specific imaging, lab processing, storage conditions or infusion capacity, or could you arrange it before activation with the cost covered?
3. Patient access. Can you support a realistic enrollment estimate from a permitted, de-identified review of your own records against the key criteria, your recruitment sources, competing studies and likely screen failures? Final eligibility always needs protocol-specific screening, and feasibility answers should share aggregate estimates, never identifiable patient information.
4. Capacity and timing. Do you have coordinator time and space in the next few months, and is site selection still open?
5. Competing studies. Would this study compete with one you already run for the same patients?
6. Budget and start-up. Could the likely budget cover your costs, and can you meet the IRB route, contract timeline and any special requirements, such as DEA registration, CLIA-certified lab work, ultra-low-temperature storage or dangerous-goods shipping training?

A study that passes all six is worth a questionnaire. A gap may still be workable if staffing, training, equipment or outside services can be in place before activation and the cost is covered. If it can't, the study usually isn't worth the hours, however attractive it looks.

Questions to ask any study-search vendor

Whether you are talking to a site network, a database, a consultant or us, ask:

• What do you count as a success? If the answer is "questionnaires sent" or "introductions made," ask how many led to a signed confidentiality agreement and a submitted feasibility response for a study that fit.
• How do you decide what to send us? Ask whether they check your real capabilities first, or send everything in your therapeutic area and let you sort it out.
• When do you find studies? ClinicalTrials.gov shows a study once it's public, and by then many of its sites have often already been chosen. US rules require applicable clinical trials to be registered no later than 21 days after the first participant enrolls, so a listing can trail site selection. Ask what earlier signals they watch. Either way, confirm directly with the sponsor or CRO whether a study is still adding sites.
• Who pays you, and for what? If a vendor is paid by sponsors or CROs as well as by you, ask how that affects which sites they put forward. If they charge you a retainer, ask what you get in a month when nothing fits.
• Can we see the log? Every contact made on your behalf should be recorded somewhere you can see it.
• What happens when an opportunity doesn't pan out? Agree in writing how duplicates, existing sponsor relationships, closed opportunities and fit problems found later affect qualification, invoicing and credits.

Put the measure in writing

Whatever you pay a vendor, a few principles help keep the arrangement focused on studies you can enroll:

• Define the services and the payment trigger in writing. Spell out what the vendor does, what counts as a qualified opportunity and when a fee becomes payable. A meeting, a raw lead or an unanswered email shouldn't count.
• Agree the fit checklist up front. You, not the vendor, should decide what fits your specialty, patients and staff.
• Keep fees fixed and separate from patients. A fee should never depend on how many patients you screen or enroll, or on the study budget. Fixed fees make the terms clearer, but they don't by themselves settle every legal question, so document a commercially reasonable fee for the services and ask your own counsel if you're unsure.
• Make sure you can disclose it. You should be comfortable telling any sponsor or CRO how the arrangement works.
• Track the whole funnel. Count qualified feasibilities, site selections, study activations and enrollment separately, so you can see where each service actually helps.

How we apply this at Shortlisted™

We built Shortlisted™ around this measure. There is no setup fee and no monthly retainer. The fixed fee becomes payable only after all three of these are true: your site has signed a confidentiality agreement with the sponsor or CRO for the study, the study meets the fit checklist you approved, and your site has submitted its feasibility response. Our fee is tied to that qualified feasibility, not to selection, activation or enrollment. If nothing qualifies, you owe nothing. We deliberately don't tie our fee to whether you're selected, how many patients you enroll or the study budget. Instead, the fit checklist you approve keeps each qualified feasibility limited to studies you could genuinely enroll. Shortlisted™ never takes money from sponsors or CROs; only the site pays us.

To find studies early, our Trial Radar watches signals that may point to a study needing sites, such as growing site lists, completion dates being pushed out, funding rounds and positive Phase 2 results. A signal is a reason to look closer, not proof that a sponsor needs more sites. Each one is checked against your site's real capabilities before we bring it to you. We can't promise a sponsor will select your site. That decision belongs to the sponsor and to you.

If you want to see how your site looks to a sponsor today, start with a free Sponsor-Ready Audit.

The short version

Questionnaire counts measure effort. Studies you can genuinely enroll are what matter. When questionnaires get scarcer and protocols get more demanding, judge any study-finding service by the studies it brings that fit your site, and track selections, activations and enrollment alongside them.

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