New trends in life science emerge all the time – and companies may be left wondering how to respond, react, or participate in a fast-paced industry. Here, we’ve rounded up some recent newsworthy items and suggested resources for further reading and learning. Let’s get up to speed.
Clearing the fog for clinical trials
A new UK-based initiative is being launched in support of medtech subject matter experts, to help organizations complete clinical trials successfully. A four-part course will facilitate clinical engagement and help companies find relevant partners with supporting projects. “Generating clinical evidence via trials or evaluations is challenging for any innovator and our aim is to at least clear the fog and lay out a roadmap to making the process as painless as possible,” says Vee Mapunde, Program Director of the National Institute for Health Research Surgical MedTech Co-operative.
Further resources
- Learn more about how technology is changing clinical trials: “Clinical trials should work smarter, not harder.”
Improving representation in oncology studies
In an article from Clinical Trials Arena, GlobalData has found that since 2013, Black participants have continued to be severely underrepresented in clinical trials, with an involvement rate of just 3%. This demonstrates the need to improve minority enrollment in oncology studies to ensure that biological responses to therapies are fully understood, allowing for the development of the most appropriate and, ultimately most successful treatments.
Strategies to improve diversity across the pharma industry must be considered where trial populations vastly differ from the disease demographics to ensure that all population subgroups are well-represented in clinical research, especially in oncology.
Further resources
- Get an at-a-glance perspective on the life science diversity problem in this infographic.
- Diversity matters in KOL selection, too. Learn more in our blog post.
Can artificial intelligence give doctors more time for patient care?
In a new study released this week, the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that physicians would need almost 27 hours per day to provide optimal patient care. The study was led by Dr. Justin Porter, M.D., at the University of Chicago School of Medicine, who said, “There is this sort of disconnect between the care we’ve been trained to give and the constraints of a clinic workday […] We have an ever-increasing set of guidelines, but clinic slots have not increased proportionately.”
It’s possible that advanced technologies could return some of this valuable time, using sentiment analysis and other components of AI to reduce time spent manually analyzing patient input. Pharmaceutical and medical device companies can also use this technology from the very beginning of the product development process, using natural language processing to identify trends or areas of concern in patient conversations.
Further resources
- Learn how sentiment analysis is used to improve patient care.
- Read more about the importance of including patients early in the drug development process.
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