Pharma Sources - Decentralising research: Virtual clinical trials

Clinical trials are vital as the basis of developing safe and effective drugs, but they can be slow and expensive. The patient burden can also be high - the time taken to travel to the site may be long (as many as 70% of patients may live two or more hours away from a clinical site), and this can be made worse when sites are not near public transport routes. The travel time, combined with the time spent at the clinic for visits, can result in absences from work or school, or issues with caring responsibilities. There are barriers that impact the access to a study for older people, neurodiverse people, people from the LGBTQIA+ community and people from ethnically minoritised groups. All of these can have an impact on recruitment and retention. 

One of the solutions to this could be the virtual clinical trial, also known as remote, digital, decentralised or siteless trials. These have potential to make the drug development process more efficient, more inclusive and more patient-centric, as well as widening the geographic area from which patients can be selected.

Virtual clinical trials are conducted remotely, with data collected from the patient wherever they are, rather than at a specific clinical trial site. The data is amassed in a variety of ways, including telemedicine platforms, and wearable devices and sensors.

​Read more at Pharma Sources.