In 2003, the cost to fully develop an FDA approved drug was $803 million1. Now, however, that price has skyrocketed up to 2.6 billion and there have been no signs of this rate slowing down!
Unfortunately, while the price to develop drugs have increased, the rate of clinical trial success has decreased by about 12% in this span.
Therefore, this results in ever-increasing pressure to increase efficiency and reduce costs of clinical trials, which can be a major catch-22.
Site directors and managers are fighting an uphill battle to minimize complexity, ensure compliance, and streamline clinical trial processes.
On the other hand, there’s still a practical, regulatory, and ethical obligation to ensure data accuracy and scientific validity.
Clinical trial workflows – or the series of repeatable tasks required to finish a trial – are essential for effectiveness, reliability, and efficiency.
Automation and workflow technologies help improve workflows…
…but they also may be challenging to implement. What you need to think is, will this all be worth it? The answer is yes.
After all, the majority of pharma companies don’t have in-house teams of software developers ready to take on the challenge of designing workflows which actually keep costs down and reduce complexity.
There are also stringent privacy and regulatory expectations that can impact pharma trials’ priorities.
Still, if they can be merged with existing systems, automated workflows eliminate repetitive, and manually intensive processes.
This simplifies data gathering and analysis, improves communications and productivity levels, and facilitates accurate tracking and reporting on process steps and completion dates.
Here Are 4 Ways Technology Can Optimize Clinical Trial Workflows
Trials generate enormous amounts of data. This information is key to identifying operational bottlenecks and generating insights into how current processes could improve.
But to make use of it, pharma companies need to be able to see it, analyze it and put it into action.
Despite the emergence of digital technology in pharma, many companies still lean heavily on paper documentation or traditional tools such as manually created spreadsheets to manage information and patient records.
There are plenty of problems with this traditional approach, including:
- Not fast enough.
- It’s historical. (i.e. you can only use it to examine data from the past, or that has already been recorded and stored)
- It’s prone to user error, inaccuracies, and data loss.
- It’s harder to share with all stakeholders – you’ll need to configure access to online databases, ensure version control, or deal with paper copies. (none of which are ideal)
Software that can automate record-keeping processes and keep track of systematic workflows doesn’t just save time short term but they also make it easier to make good business decisions that affect the entire pharma life cycle.
To be more specific, here are 4 areas in which it’s possible to use digital emerging technology to cut costs, reduce information solos, and take advantage of automation to make clinical trial workflows more effective.