SCOPE Summit 2025 Panel Discussion: Balancing Innovation Options to Enable Adoption

Image Credit: Andy Studna

A common theme of discussion at SCOPE (Summit for Clinical Operations Executives) Summit 2025 has been technology, but specifically, how it is being implemented by key stakeholders in a clinical trial such as sponsors and sites. An interactive panel on day 3 of the conference, moderated by Jane Myles, program director, Decentralized Trials & Research Alliance (DTRA), explored innovations in clinical research and how they are being implemented into workflows.

Myles was joined by Nicholas Focil, CEO, Fomat Medical Research; Christopher Herrick, vice president, research technology, Mass General Brigham; Jean Kelly, head of clinical operations, Rochester Clinical Research; and Teri Wright, director, clinical lab sciences & devices innovation, clinical trial lab & diagnostic design, Eli Lilly and Company.

With each member of the panel representing a different perspective on the implementation of technology, Myles began the conversation by asking the panel about different types of solutions being offered to it.

Kelly responded, “I would say that the most common tech that's being offered to us right now are very sponsor specific. I feel like each sponsor comes with specific platforms that are particular to them, whether that's study specific training or lab documentation and processing, and that's definitely becoming very common, but it's also becoming a bit of a burden.”

Herrick added, “No surprise, I think what we see lately is a lot of AI (artificial intelligence) solutions that are geared to solve a lot of different areas within the hospitals, within research, within trials. The other thing we see a lot of is patient matching algorithms.”

Sites being overburdened by technology innovation has been a common topic of discussion for industry in recent years. Kelly shared her thoughts on how her organization is being approached with feasibility questionnaires on AI implementation.

“Lots of push to for AI and certain new technologies like that, but it's difficult when there's so many different options, and I'm not sure that the sites are really being integrated or necessarily trained and exposed on all of the different options before being expected to use them, so that's been tricky,” she said.

As the panel continued, there was discussion on how some of this burden on sites can be alleviated. Wright provided insight on how Eli Lilly is handling the recent boom in implementing new technology across the lifecycle of a trial.

“We don't have a one size fits all model. We have flexible designs. We do work to get information back from healthcare providers and patients. We do that via surveys, workshops, data mining, and we take that information, and on the disease state. We communicate that to our design teams, and then our design teams take that feedback and they incorporate it into their designs,” she said.

The panel also shared first-hand experience of developing clinical technology, and how it was received once implemented. Focil discussed an AI tool Fomat Medical Research recently developed. While the technology provided many benefits, there were challenges with its implementation and properly training personnel to use it.

“There's four components in implementing something. There's one that most people think about is the technology, and then there's the onboarding to the training aspect of it, there's the user behavior, and the last part is the maintenance piece of it,” he said. “Those three disappear a little bit when people are thinking about technology.”

Towards the end of the discussion, Myles asked the panel about how it knows which innovations it is ready to take on board. Once again, partnering with sites and better collaboration were emphasized.

“We have to partner with our sites. That's the only way that we're going to be able to move forward with these innovations if we don't understand what all your pain points are,” Wright said.

Reference

1. Myles J, Focil N, Herrick C, Kelly J, Wright T. Balancing Innovation Options to Enable Adoption: Perspectives from Sponsors, CROs, and Sites. February 4, 2025. SCOPE Summit 2025.