Shaping the Future of Patient-Centric, AI-Driven Research

San Francisco, CA – 22nd October 2024

The 2024 Clinical Trials Innovation Summit, hosted by Genentech in San Francisco, gathered experts from across the clinical trial field to reimagine patient care through AI-driven innovation. Featuring industry leaders, clinicians, and researchers this event explored how technological advances and patient-centric strategies are transforming the clinical trial landscape.

Patient-Centricity: Building Trust and Empowering Participants

A powerful highlight of the summit was a panel featuring two clinical trial participants who shared their personal experiences. One participant, a black woman, spoke openly about the historic mistrust of medical research within her community. For her, a strong, trust-based relationship with her care team was key in overcoming initial reservations about participating in a clinical trial.
The theme of human-centricity resonated throughout the event. Presenters emphasized the importance of collecting meaningful feedback directly from patients to better understand which measures and technologies they find valuable. By involving patients as active contributors to the design and development of trials, the industry can move toward more inclusive and patient-oriented processes.

AI at the Forefront: Accelerating Trial Success and Innovation

The summit highlighted AI’s transformative role in revolutionizing clinical trials. During a fireside chat, Lee Lehman-Becker of Roche and Shiva Amiri from Pivotal Life Sciences discussed how the rapid growth in data and advanced hardware capabilities has made AI both accessible and transformative across sectors, especially in clinical trials. They highlighted the Probability of Technical Success (PTS), a metric designed to assess a trial’s likelihood of success based on feasibility and defined endpoints.

AI-driven models are also reshaping risk assessment and cost management in trials, especially during the high-risk, high-cost phases II and III. Katherine Wang from Palantir shared insights into AI’s broad integration across the drug development cycle, emphasizing its potential to streamline processes and reduce trial failures. According to Tyler Pugsley of Medable, AI can also significantly reduce trial timelines by automating key tasks, such as eCOA (electronic Clinical Outcome Assessments), making trials more efficient and accessible.

Human-in-the-Loop AI: Balancing Automation with Essential Oversight

Kate Lyden from Vivosense and Tom Switzer from Genentech, discussed a “human-in-the-loop” model that combines the benefits of automation with critical human oversight. This approach minimizes the risk of overly sensitive algorithms inundating trial sites with unnecessary alerts. Instead, AI handles preliminary assessments, while human expertise focuses on significant deviations, maintaining trial efficiency without sacrificing quality.

Mirroring this sentiment, our own Rachel Newsome introduced AQUA, an innovative data quality monitoring product designed to enhance clinical trial oversight. AQUA’s hybrid system leverages AI for automated quality assurance while incorporating human review for flagged deviations, expediting rater remediation and raising data integrity standards.

As the industry embraces tools like multidevice integrations, the importance of interoperability and patient journey mapping becomes clear. Innovations like AQUA and patient feedback mechanisms are shaping a future where clinical trials are not only faster but more accessible, inclusive, and reflective of diverse patient experiences.

The 2024 Clinical Trials Innovation Summit highlighted how collaborative innovation, AI-driven solutions, and patient-centric design are paving the way for more responsive and successful clinical trials. As technology and human insight align, the path forward for clinical research looks increasingly promising for patients, researchers, and the healthcare industry as a whole.