You Can Earn Real Money by Participating in Clinical Trials If You Dare

If you have the time, energy and motivation, a side hustle can be a good idea, but a side hustle isn’t what it used to be. As venture capital dries up, companies like Uber have begun tightening cash flows ; artificial intelligence (AI) is disrupting many traditional sources of additional income; and side jobs like answering surveys may seem easy but pay horribly when you consider the effort involved.

If you want to make real money without having to take a second job , participating in paid clinical trials may be an option for you. Pharmaceutical companies are constantly testing new drugs and treatments, and companies are always conducting research to better understand conditions and results. Although most people participating in clinical trials are volunteers who benefit from free, potentially cutting-edge treatments, healthy people often need these studies, and these people are often paid for their time. Huge amounts of money are spent developing new treatments, and money is being pumped into the system to speed up the process, so if you want to make significant money, this is a viable option that is often overlooked.

Real money, real risk

What kind of money are we talking about? The answer is that the money you can make may be significant, but it probably won’t replace a full-time job. According to a comprehensive study published in the journal Clinical Trials , median compensation for paid clinical trials is about $3,000, with most people participating in about three studies per year. Very few people make more than $10,000 annually from clinical trials, so it won’t make you a millionaire. That being said, making a few thousand dollars is no problem, and there are studies that pay pretty well – like this study in Utah that offers $15,000 .

Most tests involve several basic steps:

• Application process, usually online, to determine your eligibility
• Preliminary medical examination. Depending on the nature of the proceedings, this may be done remotely.
• Signing an informed consent form (ICF) in which you legally represent that you understand the risks involved.
• The study period itself, which may last one day or be spread out over a longer period of time with multiple visits (sometimes a stay of several days or even longer), examinations and tests.

If you’re thinking, yeah, that’s good money to sit around and do nothing, there are a few things to keep in mind:

• Time. Many of the high-paying studies require a significant investment of time. That $15k trial mentioned above? You will have to travel to Utah for 16 days and return nine times for follow-up visits. And keep in mind that while you can cancel your trial at any time, if you don’t complete it, you likely won’t get paid.
• Out-of-Pocket Costs: You will need to read the study details carefully to see what you have to pay for out of pocket. Sometimes the compensation offered is specifically for travel and accommodation expenses, and sometimes it is included in the price and additional compensation is provided in addition. Ideally, you want to target paid trials that will offset your costs.
• Insurance. Many clinical trials require your insurance to pay for things like blood tests, which are usually covered. If you don’t have insurance, this could be a problem, and if you do, you should double-check that it covers anything that the trial doesn’t pay for.
• Risk: Clinical trials often involve completely new drugs or treatments, and the whole point is to test them on people and see what happens. Although most of these treatments will have been thoroughly tested on animals and in laboratories by the time you participate, there is always a risk that you will experience negative side effects. Clinical drug trials are divided into phases, with Phase 1 being the earliest stage of testing. They pay the most because you will be one of the first people to try the drug, but they are also the riskiest. Later stages will be less risky since people have already checked everything before you, but you won’t get paid as much as a result.

So yes, the money is real, if not life-changing, but inexpensive testing and research can put $100-$150 in your pocket with minimal effort on your part, and there’s potential for much more.

Find paid trials

You need money and you are ready to rent out your body to science. How do you even find paid clinical trials?

The US government maintains a database called ClinicalTrials.gov , but the site is notoriously difficult to use. It is aimed at people with a specific illness who are looking for help (not poor healthy people looking for some money) and they do not have the opportunity to seek compensation. However, this is a starting point. You can enter your location, set a minimum distance, and leave all other fields blank. This will give you a long, long list of lawsuits in your geographic area that you can start investigating.

StudyScavenger is a searchable database of studies that allows you to list them by pay or location, helping you quickly narrow down your questions. ResearchMatch is a program funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that allows you to set up a profile to match with potential studies and trials. You can also access Trials Today , another database that matches you with current clinical trials based on a few quick profile questions.

There are also a few companies that always run paid trials, although most are limited to certain geographic regions where they have their facilities. Many of these sites will require a specific search term, which will not work if you want to become a healthy volunteer for compensation. However, some of these sites allow you to leave this field blank and search for trial money:

• Fortrea Clinical Trials makes it easy to find paid studies that they conduct, but geographic locations are often limited (as of this writing, they only offer studies in Dallas, TX, Daytona Beach, FL, and Madison, WI). .
• ICON is another company that offers a variety of tests but is fairly limited in its geographic area, only conducting studies in Kansas and Utah.
• Altasciences conducts some fairly high-paying research, primarily in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas of California.

Finally, there’s good old Google search. This is not the most efficient way to find a paid clinical trial, but it can point you to studies that are not in other databases.