DPHARM 2023: New Tools for Clinical Development

In a breakout session at DPHARM 2023, Melissa Easy, VP and GM, Clinical Technologies, IQVIA discussed evolving technologies in clinical trials and how they are being utilized. “We’re very good at throwing products at people, but we’re not actually very good at sitting there and thinking about: what is the site going to do? What is the journey we’re asking the site to go on? It doesn’t make any sense,” Easy said about the industry.

While COVID-19 sparked innovation and prompted the evolution of more clinical trial solutions, it created more choices for industry to make. Easy recalls hearing about a site that was given 22 different systems to consider.

“When I think about clinical trials and patients, they have a very different experience with technology in a clinical trial compared to what they do in their day-to-day lives and I think we need to change that,” Easy said.

Between patient centricity, different types of data collection, personalized medicines, and many other factors, the technology involved needs to come together and be cohesive. How can industry achieve that?

While it seems like a simple solution, it is not. However, Easy believes there is great opportunity. Industry needs to reconsider how it brings together all the different types of data from the different systems available, as well as finding a way to make these systems interoperable. “It’s going back to that concept of the journey, and I think it has to also start with not only outcomes, but the data and how it flows.”

Easy believes we are capturing more data in studies than ever before. She referenced a study from Tufts that found industry is capturing 3.6 million data points per study which is three times more than it was capturing 10 years ago.

The key is providing more intelligence on how to use the technology that brings all these data points together. “You need people who understand the technology and the subject matter expertise to really come together to do this, otherwise you risk doing lots of great data analysis,” Easy said.

Reference

New Tools for Clinical Development: Hype vs What’s Really Working Today? September 22, 2023. DPHARM 2023, Boston.