Fraud in Life Sciences Market Research: A Growing Problem with a Recently Available Solution

Market research in life sciences increasingly relies on online surveys to gather insights on patient behaviors, treatment outcomes, and disease burden. However, a pervasive and expanding threat is fraud, where bots or individuals pose as patients with fabricated diagnoses solely to generate income by completing incentivized surveys. This fraudulent activity threatens the validity of research data, leading to misleading conclusions and poor healthcare decisions.

How Fraud Happens in Life Sciences Surveys

• Bot Automation: Sophisticated automated programs (bots) can complete hundreds or thousands of surveys rapidly, submitting plausible but fabricated responses. Recent AI advancements allow these bots to mimic real human answers, making detection challenging. ^7,8
• Diagnosis Fabrication: Some human respondents exaggerate or invent medical conditions to qualify for studies with monetary incentives. Reports indicate individuals sometimes claim multiple concurrent illnesses (e.g., heart disease, cancer, anxiety) to participate in numerous surveys, maximizing earnings.^1,5
• Geolocation and Identity Spoofing: Fraudsters often mask their true locations and spoof identities to appear as eligible patients from targeted demographics or geographies, further complicating data quality controls. ⁶

Real Examples Highlighting the Problem

• Beekeeping Survey Incident: In 2021, a US commercial beekeeper survey offering $20 Amazon gift cards received over 1200 responses, exceeding the estimated target population. Later, many were identified as fraudulent, likely generated by bots.²
• Research on Healthcare Online Recruitment: Studies found 94.5% of select survey responses classified as fraudulent or suspicious, with 16% indicating bot automation, and many others displaying inconsistent or nonsensical answers. Sophisticated participants used virtual private servers (VPS) to manipulate geographic data and evade detection.³
• AI-Enabled Fraudulent Panelists: Market research firms report a significant portion of fraudulent respondents come from low-income countries but disguise themselves as US or European citizens to access better-paid surveys. They then use AI to obscure machine identities and behavior patterns.⁴

Impacts on Life Sciences Market Research and Commercial Insights

• Data Integrity Erosion: Fraudulent responses distort prevalence, treatment effectiveness, and patient preference data, misguiding research outcomes and commercialization strategies.
• Increased Costs and Burden: Detecting and removing fraudulent data requires complex data audits, manual reviews (e.g., photo verification), and sophisticated algorithms, inflating operational costs.
• Misguided Decisions: Flawed insights can lead to ineffective marketing approaches, suboptimal patient targeting, and regulatory risks if product benefit-risk assessments rely on compromised data.

Contemporary Solutions only have a Limited Impact

• Advanced Fraud Detection Tools: Use CAPTCHA, device fingerprinting, behavioral analytics, and photo or video verification to identify bots and fake participants.
• AI and Human Review Hybrid Strategies: Automated tools flag suspicious data, which human analysts verify to catch subtle fraud patterns.
• Restricting Incentives and Sampling Controls: Modulating incentive amounts and controlling the pool of qualified participants can reduce fraudulent attraction.
• Transparency and Reporting: Sharing fraud case studies and detection methodologies helps market research firms and sponsors develop stronger defenses against fraud.

A Permanent Solution Now in Sight

Fortunately, an innovative solution to this long-standing problem is now available from Clinakos Inc.  Thanks to some recent emerging technologies, Clinakos Inc. has successfully developed a proprietary solution that confirms an individual’s diagnosis using a combination of unique AI models that leverage a patient’s medical records to confirm their diagnosis with a high level of confidence. This solution is now available for use by a variety of market research and clinical trial applications. ⁹  

The growing bot and fake patient fraud problem demands persistent vigilance to safeguard the integrity of life sciences market research and protect critical healthcare decisions. This new innovative approach is the answer. 

Sources:

1. https://theconversation.com/how-the-internet-and-its-bots-are-sabotaging-scientific-research-261796
2. https://prelaunch.com/blog/survey-frauds
3. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7578815/
4. https://www.precisionsample.com/2024/04/02/news-insights/uncovering-fraud-fight-against-fraudulent-ai-bots/
5. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214782921000415
6. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11185910/
7. https://www.jmir.org/2024/1/e60184/
8. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/ai-chatbots-cyber/
9. https://clinakos.com/