Researchers responsible for the evaluation and testing of new drugs in the United States are incorporating new digital tools for the development of decentralized clinical trials.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the decentralization of clinical trials and promoted the use of digital tools for data collection, patient education, research, and trial execution. Even in the United States, the 32% of the trials migrated to digital media during the health emergency. In this way they have managed to save resources and above all time.
Accenture conducted a survey on digital innovation in clinical trials. The 52% of the participants explained that digital technologies improved patient recruitment and not only that, because the 46% recorded better patient retention when using these means. Furthermore, 40% of the respondents said increasing the speed of drug development as one of the benefits of applying digital innovation in clinical trials.
Traditional clinical trials involve several steps that make up a much longer process than decentralized trials. For example, protocol design, patient identification through various methods such as flyers, email, social media, patient classification and eligibility, patient enrollment, medication distribution, data collection, and application and access.
On the other hand, decentralized trials are designed through data and it is also possible to replace trials with biosimulation. Patient recruitment processes are also data-driven and the consent form is sent digitally to selected patients. Similarly, virtual interaction allows the decentralization of data collection.
According to Accenture survey participants, the top three challenges of adopting digital tools in clinical trials are:
- Technology adoption in general
- The financing and/or budget
- Regulatory barriers
However, in addition to the obvious savings in resources and time, decentralized trials have potential that is still being explored. For example, the improvement of the patient experience, algorithms that optimize patient selection and accelerate the arrival of new proven medicines to the market, and above all real-world evidence, by testing medicines in patients when they go about their routine activities.
