We spoke to Medidata’s general manager and senior VP EMEA, Christian Hebenstreit, to find out how virtual trials could change R&D.
Do you feel that bigger pharma companies are prepared for rapid technological advancements in R&D or do you feel that’s more the domain for smaller companies?
It’s similar across the industry as far as I can see. The technology nowadays is mature. A couple of years ago when we were talking about AI, cloud computing, virtual trials etc. nobody was really aware of what to expect or what this was all about, and now you’re seeing pharma companies across the globe starting to use all these things for clinical trials. We will see these quantum leaps continue over the next couple of years.
It’s never a good time to get cancer but there’s never been a better time to have cancer – you actually have a real chance to survive thanks to these advancements.
How much is the industry embracing the idea of virtual trials?
We are conducting virtual trials already – we are currently conducting one with one of our clients with 15,000 patients internationally.
It’s harder to do virtual trials in areas like oncology where patients have to often go to hospital, but in smaller areas it’s very easy to do the clinical trial at the patient’s home, supported by technology. You can easily do measurements like how easily they can get out of bed in the morning, blood pressure, how many steps they can walk over the day. These are all data points that you can capture in a much higher quality when you can have a real-time measurement of the patient and their home, and the patient can be anywhere in the world.
There will always be trials where you need to see the patient, or a certain population of patients, from time to time, and you can still decide to see 20% of the patients in the clinic and 80% at home, for example. So I have my doubts that the industry will go 100% into virtual trials – that will remain rare – but doing the vast majority of the work at home is possible, because when you take a look at your home you’ve got loads of technology lying around – like smartphones, smartwatches, Fitbits – which can measure these metrics.
What other kinds of technology might be used to monitor patients at home?
I think the trend will be that we move away from giving specific technology to patients for the trial. The acceptance of technology when you’re already have an iPad, smartwatch etc. is much higher than when you’re getting special tech from a doctor. The trend in the future will be more and more that you get better patient engagement when you’re utilising technology that is already there, and when the patient is engaged you get much fewer patient dropouts. In this way, with virtual trials you can have more of a partnership with a patient.
Are there any disadvantages to virtual trials?
I see more advantages than disadvantages to be honest, but you do need to be absolutely sure that you have the same high quality of data that you are capturing when the patient comes to the hospital, and you still need to be completely in control as it is still a highly regulated environment.
Christian Hebenstreit was speaking at the 2018 Medidata NEXT conference in New York in October
