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  EnteroMedicsEnteroMedics, Inc. (St. Paul, Minn.) engaged Schwartz Communications to develop and implement a public relations campaign to help drive enrollment in the clinical trial of its VBLOC™ Therapy system for obesity. EnteroMedics developed an implantable, investigational device that could be a less-invasive alternative to surgery. VBLOC Therapy is intended to block signals carried on the vagus nerves between the brain and the digestive system that control sensations of hunger, satisfaction and fullness. Unlike bariatric surgeries, VBLOC Therapy does so without altering the anatomy.When a clinical study has strict criteria for participation, a tight deadline and a tight budget, Schwartz has proven that PR can be a powerful and effective tool to recruit patients. Business ChallengeEnteroMedics needed to enroll 300 patients in its pivotal study of VBLOC Therapy. And because it is a public company that had projected completion of that assignment by a certain date—the pressure was on to meet or beat this self-imposed deadline. Advertising is the most commonly used approach to support clinical trial recruitment. But sustained print and radio ad campaigns that run for months can be extremely expensive and often are not the most efficient or cost-effective way to promote a study. Especially in this case—there were strict criteria for participating in the VBLOC Therapy study, so it would be ideal for those calling into the call center to be as “qualified” a lead as possible. It was challenging to effectively and thoroughly communicate the study enrollment criteria in ads. Schwartz PR StrategySchwartz set out to drive feature news stories in high-impact national media as well as local media outlets in the 13 U. S. study site markets, to drive awareness of the clinical study and to encourage potential study participants to call into the call center or go to the website to determine if they would be eligible for the study. ResultsThere were a total of 140 stories in print, broadcast and on the web over a six-month timeframe. Multiple stories appeared in each study market, from San Francisco to San Diego to Minneapolis to Boston to Cleveland. Major print coverage included Los Angeles Times, Dow Jones/Wall Street Journal, and a front page San Francisco Chronicle story that drove coverage on The CBS Early Show. VBLOC Therapy was later featured on Good Morning America, as well as on Ivanhoe and CBS Newspath segments that were syndicated to dozens of additional markets. These news stories drove potential study patients to the website and a unique toll-free number. In fact, after the GMA story, website traffic increased 600 percent for two days. A front page San Francisco Chronicle story increased web traffic 350 percent. Schwartz helped EnteroMedics meet its very aggressive recruitment goals. Nine percent of patients who expressed interest about the study as a result of PR eventually enrolled in the trial. This is an extremely high rate, much higher than the conversion rate for any other promotional tool used, including advertising. The reason for this high conversion rate is the fact that those who called in as a result of PR were already more “qualified” than those responding to ads. Because the news stories provided more information about the study criteria, people had more information when calling in, than those who may have heard an ad.
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