Interview with Henro van Rooyen, Regional Lead, EMEA, TrialScreen

Patient recruitment and retention remain critical bottlenecks in clinical research, causing delays in the majority of trials and driving up the cost of drug development. As the market shifts toward decentralized and hybrid models, sponsors are seeking scalable, patient-friendly solutions that balance speed with precision.

One company stepping into this space is TrialScreen, a global, patient-facing platform designed to make clinical research more visible and accessible. It connects interested and eligible people with trials, offers multilingual and telehealth-enabled pre-screening, and helps sponsors recruit and retain participants. In a candid conversation, Henro van Rooyen, Regional Lead for EMEA, shared how TrialScreen works, the challenges it’s tackling, and the company’s strategy for scaling in a rapidly growing market.

Enjoy the interview!

Research2Guidance: Could you briefly introduce TrialScreen and explain your core value proposition for clinical trial sponsors?

Henro: TrialScreen is essentially a patient-facing search engine for clinical trials. Our partners call us the “Google of clinical trials.” Our platform, trialscreen.org, lists over 120,000 studies, and we see around 60,000 prospective participants each month searching for trials they might want to join across various regions. Our page views are growing at around 30% month on month, which indicates that we have significant momentum. 

We provide this as a free service to patients, but there’s also a commercial side for sponsors. We can help connect patients with trial sites, run targeted media campaigns to raise awareness for specific diseases, and offer multilingual support across the countries we serve.

Additionally, we provide a white-label service, allowing clients to feature only their own studies under their own unique branding. One of our key offerings is FLOW, where we actively manage patient leads through a video-first telehealth pre-screening process, acting as an extension of the site or sponsor. 

Behind this business strategy is a clear guiding entrepreneurial principle: “you should be your customer’s customer“.

Our founder and CEO, Dr. Stephenson, is both a practicing physician and a seasoned clinical research entrepreneur. Through his experience, he recognized the challenges of recruitment for sites. TrialScreen was built to change that dynamic. By providing patients with easier access to studies and offering sites better recruitment and easier digital support, we help sponsors reach the right participants more efficiently, while also improving the overall patient journey.

Research2Guidance: That’s interesting. Beyond accessibility, what do you see as the main challenges in patient recruitment and screening and how does TrialScreen address them?

Henro: Recruitment will always be a challenge, protocols change, research evolves, and personalized medicine is on the horizon. There will always be a need for patients and cost-effective ways to find them, making this an exciting space to work in.

The biggest challenge isn’t just driving traffic, but driving the right traffic. For example, you can’t recruit for a myeloma study by advertising to prostate cancer patients; you need precise targeting. That’s where we add value for sponsors: delivering the right patients with solutions that are cost-effective and easy to deploy.

We offer three products: our base platform, REFER PLUS, and REFER Premium. Premium delivers tailored recruitment campaigns similar to larger firms, but with TrialScreen’s technology advantage.  REFER PLUS stands out as a flexible, pay-per-lead model with no startup fees or ethics approvals required (location dependant). It’s simple to switch on or off, making it highly adaptable.

Another key advantage is how we simplify the patient journey. We pull trial data from ClinicalTrials.gov and other global registries and use our A.I driven technology to rewrite it into clear, patient-friendly language. Patients complete a short AI developed pre-screener, and if the patient is eligible and interested, we can follow up with a video-first secondary screening led by staff with backgrounds across medicine and science before scheduling them with the site. This ensures sites receive well-qualified, and most importantly, a motivated participant.

Research2Guidance: You’ve clearly tackled these challenges. Any success stories you can share with us?

Henro: Absolutely. Let me share two key examples in different indications.

The first was a Phase 3 chronic fatigue study, which is notoriously difficult to recruit for since diagnosis is often by exclusion. We used our REFER PLUS service, a flexible pay-per-lead model where sites only pay when we successfully refer a patient. Over seven weeks, across two sites in one geographic area, we referred nine highly qualified patients who met the protocol criteria. Given the difficulty of this condition, the speed and cost efficiency really showed the value of our approach.

The second was a Phase 1 influenza vaccine study in healthy volunteers, where we used Flow, our telehealth engagement platform. We pre-screened nearly 4,000 leads and successfully referred 1,600 patients to the site. Because it was a large site, we coordinated closely with site managers to stagger patient inflow, ensuring they weren’t overwhelmed and that patients were well received. It highlights how we not only drive volume but also manage the human connection between patients and sites.

Research2Guidance: Getting patients in the door is one thing, but another major cost for pharma is patient drop-out, where many start a trial but fewer finish. From your perspective, what can be done to improve adherence and keep patients motivated throughout the study?

Henro: Adherence is indeed a significant problem, and it puts a lot of pressure not only on sponsors but also on sites that work hard to keep patients engaged. There are some excellent companies and solutions out there focused on patient engagement, and at TrialScreen we see ourselves as part of that broader ecosystem..

For us, the key starts with setting clear expectations during pre-screening. Patients need to know upfront what a study will involve, how long it lasts, how often they’ll need to visit the site, whether travel or time off work will be required. When participants fully understand the commitment from the beginning, they’re much more likely to complete.

Once enrolled, staying connected is critical. That’s why we created Research Friends, a community-led initiative that gives patients ongoing touchpoints with real people, not just automated reminders. It’s a space where patients can ask questions, share experiences, and feel part of something bigger than a single study. By providing that layer of support, sites can reduce drop-out, sponsors see better retention, and most importantly, patients feel respected and informed throughout their journey.

Ideally, if 100 patients start, we’d love to see 97 complete, and if a few do drop out, there should be clear, valid reasons why. Achieving that requires transparency upfront and meaningful engagement throughout.

Research2Guidance: That’s a helpful perspective on adherence. Do you see differences in motivation for joining trials across regions or cultures?

Henro: Yes. On the African continent, participation can sometimes be a patient’s only access to regular medical care, even if randomized to a placebo. But even within Europe, motivations might differ between countries like Italy, Spain, and Poland.

Motivation also depends on the therapeutic area and socioeconomic status. For example, oncology patients, whether in Harare, Zimbabwe or Manhattan, New York, will want to join a study if it can extend their prognosis, even slightly.

Overall, regardless of background, patients often want to contribute to advancing healthcare and leave things better than they found them, which is incredibly inspiring.

Research2Guidance: In which countries are you active, and where do you feel strongest in offering your services?

Henro: TrialScreen is still young, about 14 months old, but we’ve recently received a significant investment that enabled us to expand globally. We now have offices in Cape Town, London, and New York, with teams supporting patients and sites across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas.

Our head office remains in Melbourne, Australia, where our APAC team has been active for over a year. As of Q3 2025, we’ve become a fully global operation, capable of helping sponsors and sites recruit patients worldwide.

Research2Guidance: Given that reach, I’d like to step back and look at the market as a whole. How large is the DCT market today, based on your data, and what makes it unique compared to traditional trials?

Henro: The numbers vary depending on the source, but by my estimation and research, the global DCT market is currently worth $9–12 billion, growing at double-digit rates of up to 15%. Projections suggest it could reach $22–25 billion by 2025, which makes it a very attractive and dynamic space for investors.

What sets it apart are the many new approaches: remote screenings, home health visits, digital consenting, and more. The pandemic accelerated adoption, and today about 50% of virtual studies include a hybrid component, meaning patients still visit sites for things like blood draws or diagnostic workups.

Interestingly, we’re also seeing the reverse: around 10% of traditional Phase 3 studies now include some decentralised elements, such as one or two virtual visits or at-home procedures. This shift suggests the future will be increasingly hybrid sites and PIs remain essential, especially for early-phase safety, but later-phase trials are gradually integrating decentralised methods.

Research2Guidance: Building on that, what trends in the DCT space do you see, and which excite you the most?

Henro: Recruitment in DCT isn’t just about removing the site; it’s also about finding better ways to move and engage patients. Telemedicine plays a big role here. We use a video-first approach to keep patients connected, and we see AI being used by other players in the space as well. But the reality is, not every patient wants to talk to a bot. An 88-year-old with a hip fracture, for example, wants to speak with a real person who understands her situation.

That’s why we believe the future will be about integrating different approaches to human touch alongside AI-driven tools, and sponsors will often use a mix of both.

Another exciting trend is the potential for integration of medical records, though that remains challenging given the many regulations across countries. Still, the market’s strong growth of around 15% annually shows how much innovation is happening to address these shortcomings. We see plenty of room for new solutions, and we believe TrialScreen is well-positioned to contribute to that evolution.

Research2Guidance: That naturally leads to which technologies will have the biggest impact on recruitment and screening over the next three years.

Henro: I believe the biggest impact will come from data integration and the use of artificial intelligence to triage patients. That said, human insights remain essential and clinical research still requires a focus on the patient and maintaining a human connection.

In practical terms, technologies like multi-language natural language processing for searching databases like ours will be particularly transformative. These approaches lower barriers to entry and democratize patient access to studies. Of course, there’s much more innovation on the horizon, but for our senior leadership team, this is where our focus will be in the next few months.

Research2Guidance: Based on your experience engaging with sponsors, where do they typically see the biggest returns on investment from patient engagement and screening solutions?

Henro: Trialscreen provides an inexpensive way to recruit patients, and we already have around 60,000 patients per month on our platform. Our technology allows us to create a quick, patient-friendly pre-screener, so patients can easily indicate their eligibility, like “I have asthma, I’m 18 years old, and I’m currently using an inhaler.”

For sponsors, this is valuable because it means recruitment is cost-effective, high-volume, and highly targeted. From an engagement perspective, the patients who go through this process are already motivated; they’ve made the effort to find and screen for a study. That means they truly want to participate, are well-categorized through our pre-screening, and are aware of other potential studies but have chosen the one they are eligible for.

This combination of motivation, targeting, and pre-screening is the key value proposition we bring to sponsors.

Research2Guidance: What is ahead for TrialScreen in the next one to two years?

Henro: Our main goals are scaling operations in Africa/Europe  and the US, and growing our patient engagement on our website from 60,000 to over 250,000 per month. We want more scientists and patients to know about TrialScreen, while also engaging patients and expanding our pharma and CRO client base.

Our global growth is driven by strong traction in the APAC region, which secured the investment for expansion. We’re also forward-thinking, constantly analyzing market gaps and developing the “product of tomorrow.” For instance, trialscreen.org is mobile-friendly, and we’re building a swipe-based interface for studies to keep users engaged.

We’re actively collaborating with pharmaceutical companies and CROs globally, who see the platform’s value in recruitment and democratizing access to clinical research. Personally, I’m passionate about driving growth in Africa. We’re working with partners in South Africa,  Tanzania, and Kenya to connect patients to research opportunities.

While our immediate focus is scaling and innovation, the long-term vision is clear: we want every site worldwide to be signed up to receive organic referrals. Imagine a sponsor calling us and saying, “Out of 75 sites running this trial, nearly half are already on TrialScreen. Can you help us recruit?” That’s the future we’re building toward, and everything we do now is a step in that direction.

Research2Guidance: Henro, thank you very much for this insightful conversation. We wish you and the entire TrialScreen team continued success.

About TrialScreen

TrialScreen is a global platform making clinical research visible, accessible, and human. By bringing every registered trial into clear view and making them easier to understand, TrialScreen reduces site burden, helps sponsors connect globally and act locally, and most importantly, brings research closer to the people who need it most. Learn more at https://www.trialscreen.inc