Collaborate to Accelerate

How industry is coming together to speed up clinical trials



An increasingly complex clinical trial landscape is driving the life sciences industry to support broad collaborations aimed at defining and implementing standard approaches, helping to make it easier to run a trial. Such collaborations are becoming a strategic priority for those companies hoping to create greater efficiencies and accelerate trials.

With more stakeholders in the mix, as well as different processes and systems used across the clinical trial ecosystem, sharing information and making timely decisions has become burdensome. For example, study teams regularly use manual processes to manage documents and data, often sharing information via email, which limits collaboration, creates redundant work and significantly lengthens trial timelines.

One organization that is playing a significant role in bringing the industry together to accelerate research and development efforts is TransCelerate BioPharma, Inc., a nonprofit with members from many of the world’s most successful biopharmaceutical companies. 

One initiative it has introduced is the Shared Investigator Platform (SIP), which aims to provide the industry with a centralized platform that is interoperable between clinical solutions to streamline communications between investigators and sponsors, and reduce duplicate information requests during trials.

TransCelerate has also recently announced that it will integrate a cloud-based content management solution with SIP to enable sponsors, sites and CROs to easily assess and exchange information. The cloud application will help sites consolidate document requests, alerts and notifications in the TransCelerate-sponsored SIP, reducing the time spent by investigators on administrative tasks.

The solution will also give sponsors visibility across all studies – something that’s been difficult to do in the past and has hindered the ability to capture insight across a full portfolio. With a single, consolidated view of their trials, regardless of which providers have contributed, it enables a unified clinical operation where all team members, regardless of location or employer, can collaborate on the same platform and manage content and data seamlessly across a trial.

The need for a collaborative ecosystem in life sciences is urgent. With rising costs and inefficiencies, there is growing recognition that the current model is unsustainable. This new centralized model of information exchange proves that technology has evolved to support a more unified clinical environment and signals a willingness within the industry to adopt common operational processes.

In short, the global life sciences industry is ready and technically able to collaborate. Using TransCelerate’s document exchange capability is an example of how technology can increase visibility and efficiency within the clinical trial process and ultimately speed the research and development of new treatments and therapies. It’s not hard to imagine a point in the not-too-distant future when the life sciences industry standardizes approaches across the entire clinical ecosystem.

Jennifer Goldsmith is Senior Vice President of Veeva Vault at Veeva Systems (www.veeva.com/eu)