ACT Brief Episode 7: Veeva and Merck Trial Efficiency, DCT Barriers, and Glucose Monitoring Strategies

This is the Applied Clinical Trials Brief—your fast track to the latest insights in clinical research operations. In under three minutes, we’ll recap top stories, highlight expert interviews, and keep you current on what’s moving the industry. Let’s get into it.

On this episode, we’re spotlighting our three most-viewed articles from the past week—covering new approaches to trial efficiency, barriers to decentralized adoption, and evolving strategies for glucose monitoring.

We begin with highlights of the clinical operations zone keynote from last week’s Veeva R&D and Quality Summit, where Veeva and Merck shared how unified platforms can reduce trial complexity and improve efficiency. Veeva reported its clinical platform has cut trial master file costs by up to 40%, monitoring costs by 30%, and electronic data capture build time by half. Merck described its “Zero Gravity” program, an effort to streamline studies through an integrated platform, already showing gains in trial setup, faster data ingestion, and reduced downtime. Both companies emphasized the importance of making trials more consistent and patient-centric.

In our second story, Sunny Kumar of Informed Ventures discussed why decentralized trial models have been slow to scale despite clear benefits for retention and diversity. He pointed to multimillion-dollar upfront costs, a down cycle in pharma investment, and risk-averse culture as major barriers. To close the digital divide, Kumar stressed providing devices to patients instead of relying on their own, particularly in under-resourced areas. He also highlighted generative AI as a promising cost-reduction tool, while noting that sponsors need integrated platforms—not point solutions—to truly drive adoption.

And finally, glucose monitoring strategies are evolving as GLP-1 therapies expand beyond diabetes. Blood glucose meters remain the regulatory gold standard, but continuous glucose monitors are gaining traction for exploratory endpoints and safety monitoring. CGMs generate exponentially more data, offering insights into variability and time in range, while BGMs provide simplicity, reliability, and global availability. Many trials are adopting hybrid approaches, using both technologies, supported by eCOA platforms that integrate devices, trigger patient diaries, and deliver real-time monitoring dashboards.

For more on this and other developments in clinical research, visit us at appliedclinicaltrialsonline.com. Thanks for listening to the Applied Clinical Trials Brief.