AutoCruitment is a company that is unlocking the power of the patient by helping life sciences companies target, recruit, and screen more of the right patients quickly. Pulse 2.0 interviewed AutoCruitment CEO Jill Pellegrino to learn more about the company.
Jill Pellegrino’s Background
What is Jill Pellegrino’s background? Pellegrino said:
“I have more than 15 years of experience working in patient recruitment in various capacities. I started my patient recruitment career doing predictive modeling for pricing and feasibility and ultimately grew into the role of General Manager at Accelerated Enrollment Solutions. In my time there, I was responsible for our network of 180 global sites as well as our patient recruitment business. After that, I moved to CVS Health where I was the President of Real-World Evidence and Patient Recruitment, and I have now been AutoCruitment’s CEO for just over a year. As my background attests, I am passionate about the impact that patient recruitment has on clinical research and excited to be leading AutoCruitment through its next phase of growth.”
Formation Of AutoCruitment
How did the idea for the company come together? Pellegrino shared:
AutoCruitment came together around the mission to make clinical trials accessible to anyone, and was a founder-run business for 10 years.
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Pellegrino reflected:
“That would be a meeting last year, when I was able to meet the majority of the team at an in-person meeting in Toronto. I felt like I could connect the people to AutoCruitment’s mission, and I was truly impressed with the depth of talent and scientific expertise in the organization.”
“Seeing the collective excitement and pride in our mission to match patients to clinical trials was truly inspiring. It reminded me of the significant impact we have on people’s lives and reinforced my commitment to our important work.”
“Additionally, I was energized by the diversity and the number of female employees within our organization. As a female, this was a moment of great personal and professional pride to recognize that I was the leader of such a dynamic and inclusive team, and to see myself as a role model and to have the opportunity to help others learn and grow within the company.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Pellegrino explained:
“As an organization, we’re driven by data and metrics and give full transparency to those throughout the enrollment process. Our core products and services are all built around finding the right patients for clinical research at exactly the right time, a task at which we excel. Through our technology, we target, screen, and qualify potential patients for clinical research opportunities. Our engagement services teams provide support to patients and sites to reduce the burden both face throughout the clinical trial process. This is tremendously important as patients need to have a resource that they can ask questions of as they go through recruitment, and research sites need support for all the tasks they are responsible for during recruitment and enrollment, including the responsibility for successful trial execution. Our teams help reduce the uncertainty for patients, and the qualification and administrative burden of recruitment.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges have Pellegrino and the team faced in building the company? Pellegrino acknowledged:
“The sheer number of trials, the wide diversity of conditions, and the need to find specific patient populations is a significant challenge, not just for AutoCruitment but clinical research as a whole. There are over 25,000 trials that are either in progress or for which organizations are currently recruiting patients, and the commonly quoted statistic is that 80% of them will face delays due to enrollment. Such delays ultimately keep treatments out of patients’ hands even longer, so finding the right patients for research at the right time is incredibly important.”
“Studies that need the most help with enrollment are facing recruitment challenges as they seek to enroll the sickest patients, such as those with severe lupus or complex cardiovascular conditions. This is quite different from studies involving chronic conditions or healthy volunteers, which can also present their own unique set of challenges.”
“To overcome these difficulties, we’ve become more thoughtful about ensuring our recruitment and support methodology aligns with the complexity of the study. First, we have refined our pre-screening and qualification processes to ensure we are making good matches between patients and studies. This helps us unlock access to the right potential patients who are most likely to benefit from and contribute to the study.”
“Additionally, we’ve developed new strategies to screen and engage patients who are facing challenges and obstacles in accessing clinical trials, providing them with extra support and care to ensure that they feel comfortable and are successful in enrolling and participating. One of our phone screening services includes Registered Nurses, giving us the ability to offer a deeper layer of clinical screening and to allow patients access to a clinician early in the recruitment process.”
“Focusing on enhanced targeting and screening has not only helped us overcome the challenges in supporting more difficult trials, but has also improved the overall experience for our patients, reinforcing our commitment to their well-being and the success of our studies.”
Evolution Of AutoCruitment’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Pellegrino noted:
“AutoCruitment’s technology is evolving to stay current and ahead of market trends so we can continue to find, screen, and qualify the best possible patients into clinical research. For example, we recently added the ability to capture consent and authorization to collect Electronic Medical Records (EMR) on patients’ behalf. Our EMR Capture & Intelligence pilot program clarified patients’ willingness to automate elements of clinical trial screening: more than 90% of potential patients consented to having AutoCruitment collect their EMR data. This technology serves the patient because they don’t have to remember individual logins or spend their time calling providers for access to their records. The AI-based technology is especially beneficial for research sites because the EMR data is already aggregated, standardized, and available in our Patient Management Portal so they can quickly and easily review records to further qualify patients.”
“We are known for the depth of our metrics and transparency in reporting campaign progress, and the evolution of our portal is representative of that. Furthermore, we are continuing to invest in our technology by developing chatbots to support patients even before they pass online screening, SMS automation, and a constant effort to expand our patient database and better tap into the data we have.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the company’s most significant milestones? Pellegrino cited:
“In the early years of AutoCruitment, we were exclusively focused on recruiting for Neurology trials. We’re still incredibly strong in the CNS space; however, we have now expanded to over 120 conditions. In 2022, AutoCruitment was acquired by QHP Capital, which gave us the resources and structure to invest further in both the technology and commercial sides of our business as we expand our reach and impact in patient recruitment. Last year y we released a new visual design and UX in our Patient Management Portal, new SMS options, EMR Capture & Intelligence, and introduced Registered Nurses to our clinical call center.. Additionally, we have built out our executive leadership team with individuals who bring a wealth of expertise in life sciences.”
“AutoCruitment has led the patient recruitment space for the last ten years, and we continue to invest in strategies and resources to help unlock access to more patients so we can continue to support those more difficult studies. As noted above, in 2024 we completed a successful pilot of Electronic Medical Record Capture & Intelligence, finding high patient engagement and significant time and efficiency savings in EMR collection.”
“We are adding studies and completing enrollment in studies on an ongoing basis, and on average, our clients see a 97% increase in randomization and save 9 months on enrollment timelines. In 2024 alone, we’ve completed studies in Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, Diabetes, GERD, Pediatric Constipation, Pediatric & Adult Migraine, Kidney Disease, Osteoarthritis, and Atopic Dermatitis. In these studies, we saved over 10 months on average and increased the enrollment rate by an average of 262%.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Pellegrino about customer success stories, she highlighted:
“We strive to help connect patients to clinical research so they can improve the quality of their life, and when we help a study sponsor decrease enrollment timelines, we’re also helping them bring treatment to a broader patient population more quickly. Pediatric patient recruitment is an area with a great need; however, other patient recruitment vendors typically do not work in this area.”
“Just since 2023, we have completed 13 pediatric studies for conditions that are easier to recruit in, like Pediatric ADHD, to those that are far more complex, like Pediatric Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia. In the Pediatric BPD or Schizophrenia patient cohort, we saved our client 11 months on enrollment and contributed over 1/3 of the randomizations in the study. Our recently completed Pediatric ADHD study saved our client 20 months on the study timeline, and we increased randomizations by 137%.”
“We recently closed an Essential Tremor study where we randomized 238 patients and saved the trial sponsor over 2 years on the study timeline, and a Uterine Fibroid/Endometriosis study where we randomized 671 patients and saved the sponsor almost 3 years on the study timeline. In the last two years, we have closed several Atopic Dermatitis studies where we contributed over 200 total randomizations and saved the study sponsors anywhere from 1 to 22 months on their enrollment timelines.”
Total Addressable Market
What total addressable market (TAM) size is the company pursuing? Pellegrino assessed:
“We work with biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device, and Contract Research Organizations to provide patient recruitment services, and we’ve recruited patients in over 120 conditions in 37 countries. We work with our clients both at study initiation and in rescue scenarios where we come in mid-enrollment because the study is not meeting enrollment goals.”
“While there are some therapeutic areas that we don’t think are best served by direct-to-patient recruitment, there are hundreds of others that are. Some areas where we see significant activity are dermatology, especially atopic dermatitis, CNS conditions like ADHD, migraines, and a range of psychological disorders, both adult and pediatric, cardiovascular, GI, pain, and infectious diseases. We have also recently been seeing more opportunities for recruitment in studies involving GLP-1 agonists for obesity and cardiovascular benefits, not only diabetes.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Pellegrino affirmed:
“AutoCruitment is the leader in patient recruitment and the largest patient recruitment-specific solution on the market. Our clients trust us to unlock access to a generally untapped patient population. We have successfully randomized over 12,000 patients and have over 10 years of experience finding patients for studies in more than 120 conditions around the globe. We are able to work in therapeutic areas and in regions where many other patient recruitment companies don’t have expertise. Previous therapeutic area experience is one of the most important factors that our clients talk about when they are looking for a patient recruitment partner.”
“AutoCruitment’s Enhanced Qualification Services include our highly sophisticated online screener, our clinical phone screening services, including Registered Nurses, and EMR Capture and Intelligence. Clients love working with our Engagement Services team and see them as an extension of their site teams.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Pellegrino emphasized:
“One of our primary objectives is to continue expanding our use of technology and AI in patient recruitment. By leveraging these advancements, we can make the process more efficient for patients and increase our access to patients so we can identify the right patients for each trial.”
“Another key goal is to deepen our therapeutic area expertise. While our reach is expansive, we are committed to expanding our services into more complex disease states. This will enable us to match patients with a broader range of trials, ultimately helping more individuals find suitable clinical studies that can potentially improve their health outcomes.”
“Finally, we are committed to further strengthening our relationship with patients. We want to be seen as a credible and reliable source that can assist them in finding clinical trials as a healthcare option.”
Additional Thoughts
Any other topics you would like to discuss? Pellegrino concluded:
“By relying on traditional recruitment methods, pharma organizations are only able to access about 10% of the potential patient population since they are reliant on physician referrals and site databases, which are limited. That leaves 90% of the population that does not have access to clinical research, and it is our mission to change that by unlocking access to research opportunities for a broader population.”
“Study sponsors need patient recruitment support from an organization that has proven experience finding the right patients at the right time, and AutoCruitment is and has been the company to do that.”
