“Effective clinical trial recruitment is a balancing act among the interests of the sponsors of the trial, the patients being recruited, the families of these patients, the medical centres and third-party investigators implementing the research programme, and the government regulators who oversee the process. In choosing a consultancy to provide communications support for clinical trial recruitment, the sponsor must carefully weigh all of these these factors in judging the quality and cost-effectiveness of the offers being made. Often the consultant’s advice may seem complex or even counter-intuitive, but that is the challenge of this work, and successful clinical trial sponsors will recognize the care that has gone into a sound and, hopefully, winning proposal.”