In this video interview, Dipanwita Das, CEO & co-founder at Sorcero, highlights trial startup timelines and workforce development as key areas of focus for clinical operations professionals in 2025.
In a recent video interview with Applied Clinical Trials, Dipanwita Das, CEO & co-founder at Sorcero, discussed advancements and future trends in clinical trials. Key challenges include high costs, long timelines, lack of diversity, and rigid protocols. Das highlighted technological advancements such as AI, real-time monitoring, and historical data analysis, which are all expected to optimize trial design and patient recruitment in 2025 and beyond.
ACT: What do you think should be top of mind for clinical operations executives going into 2025?
Das: First and foremost, operational efficiency, the picks and shovels of what makes this system work is essential, and making sure that we have a really strong foundation of operational efficiency in terms of processes and technology and standardized KPIs in regular measurement of impact is going to be really, really important. One of the things in there is focusing on reducing trial startup times. It often takes a lot of time there and to strengthen the supply chain resilience related to a trial, which can also be patchy, particularly if you're a smaller biotech. In addition to that, is workforce development. When we work with industry, we find that the skill set on staff isn't always as tech-, software-, digital-forward as it were, as it needs to be, so making sure that there is enough training programs so that your existing staff can use new technologies and methodologies really well, building expertise in remote trial management, which can be really difficult to do, and of course, cost management, the ROI on technology investments has to be instrumented and measured continuously and very effectively, and quality measurement. I would say that if executives keep these four things in mind, the operational efficiency, invest in the workflows, development and the training so that they can adapt to and adopt new tech, managing the cost and ensuring that the trial costs are leading to the revenue and other outcomes you're seeking, and quality management just up and down that pipeline is going to be extremely important.
