Dr Nick Scott Ram, managing director of life sciences at Sensyne Health looks at the technologies that are driving the advancement of clinical trials.
Over the last 10 years, we have seen huge advances in genomics broadly and CRISPR genome editing specifically, diagnostics, biomarkers, imaging, stem cell research, targeted cancer therapy and immunotherapy. Against this background of innovation we are now also rethinking approaches to randomised clinical trials to try and overcome the associated time, cost, patient recruitment and efficacy challenges which can often hinder our understanding about potential new investigational therapies.
Early changes in improving clinical trials often saw the use of data science and technology as a key driver from new ethical and regulatory frameworks changing the way researchers use data to inform drug discovery and development, to new technologies, reducing the need for mass patient participation and greater targeting amongst patient populations during clinical trials. All this against an extraordinarily challenging period of a global pandemic has driven the healthcare and life sciences industries to improve patient care and dramatically speed up more inclusive and targeted drug development.