In the first half of 2020, Informa Connect Life Sciences conducted two studies of clinical trials professionals from around the world. Here we take a closer look at how the respondents view the adoption of technology in clinical trials and their predictions for the coming decade.
In April 2020, Informa Connect Life Sciences conducted a huge study of pharma and biotech professionals around the world, asking them to predict how their industries will look by 2030 (read the full report here). Those with a focus on clinical trials made up 108 of the responses and offered some fascinating insights into the technologies they think are going to be central to trials in the coming decade.
Shortly after, in May 2020, a separate study explored the adoption of decentralized and hybrid clinical trials (read the full report here). The 184 responses provided a look at how integral technologies are to such trials, revealing which are already being used and which are key to future adoption strategies.
Over the following pages we take a look at the combined results of these studies, delving into the data particularly around technology.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning is the technology clinical trials professionals predict will have the biggest impact in the next decade, with 80% rating the impact as 'significant' or 'huge'. Wearable and Internet of Things are not far behind, both with an average impact rating of 3.69/5. All three are expected to play a key part in decentralized trials.
Emerging technologies are expected to have huge benefits on clinical trials in the coming decade. However, it is the increased speed (43%) and innovation (37%) that respondents are most excited about. Interestingly, only 15% chose 'reduced cost', perhaps showing the significant outlay still required to adopt new technologies.
Choosing the best technologies for decentralized and hybrid trials is vital to their success. Reliability (49%) is by far the most important aspect in this decision, followed by ease of use (26%). Perhaps surprisingly, cost is a relatively minor consideration, with just 5% of respondents saying it is their important factor.
When it comes to decentralized and hybrid trials, mobile technologies (53%) are currently being used most commonly, followed by wearables (41%) and in-home devices (37%).
Respondents in North America top the usage for every technology due to the higher current adoption rates.
