Clinical Trial Day: Honoring our Clinical Researchers

International Clinical Trials Day began in 2005 to commemorate the day James Lind started the first clinical trial on May 20, 1747. This year, on May 20, 2021, we will celebrate and raise awareness by honoring some of our clinical research professionals across the globe and the work they do to improve patient care. Read below to learn more!

Standardization is an integral element to automating the clinical trial design and study build process. Organizations such as UCB are looking to leverage technology solutions to effectively define, manage and integrate the metadata processes. But what are the driving factors, challenges and important considerations for those looking to modernize their approach to clinical trial design and study builds? Stayce Murray, Head of IT Digital Clinical Development, partnered with Formedix to explore these considerations and discuss the role of metadata standardization in an end-to-end clinical study environment. View the full session here.

UCB was one of the member companies instrumental in advancing this industry-leading TransCelerate initiative, established to maximize the value of clinical data collected in the control arms of clinical trials by enabling the responsible sharing of patient-level data from completed studies while safeguarding patient privacy. Read more in the Pulse On Progress (pg. 9) from TransCelerate where a vision to increase potential value in a post COVID-19 world is described.

Innovation is a driver in the acceleration and impact of our research and development. For patients that includes advancing adaptations in decentralized clinical trials (DCT) and UCB was recently highlighted in the Clinical Leader online magazine for use of DCT studies during the pandemic. Tero Laulajainen, Head of GCSO, was interviewed on how our digital transformation helped to manage the impact of the pandemic on clinical trials. Advancing the use of decentralized trials allowed us to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on our clinical studies allowing a more patient centric experience. In addition, he joined peers at Janssen, Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals, PPD and Medable to discuss best practices, techniques for using technology to improve patient centricity, and ways to implement remote Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment (eCOA) and DCTs in a non-disjointed way. View the entire session here.

The pandemic continues to have a profound impact on people around the world, putting pressure on our health systems and disrupting all our daily lives. But it has also showcased human ingenuity, and the significance of R&D in overcoming societal threats and the importance of looking beyond just tomorrow as it pertains to developing solutions for patients. Imagine a future where a patient or physician can find, learn about and participate in clinical research similar to the way we interact with our own financial services companies – through apps and sophisticated yet simple technology solutions. Enter digital transformation and blockchain solutions! Alongside industry peers such as GSK, Novartis, and Bristol-Myers Squibb, Disa Lee Choun, Head of GCSO Innovation, moderated this exciting forum on “Creating a More Seamless Front-End and Back-End to Future-Proof and Advance Digital Transformation in Pharma”. View the full session here.

We continue to collaborate with innovative external partners. We have joined with Stanford Medicine for rapid exploration of clinical datasets to identify defined patient phenotypes and clusters. Stanford, with its unique access to scientific and medical excellence alongside significant patient data, will considerably expand our range of available approaches to better understand patients.

To enable rapid investigation of new patient populations where our solutions could impact, we have worked with Quantum Black. Together the UCB and Quantum Black team have brought together diverse datasets and used advanced analytics to enable prioritization of potential new opportunities for our pipeline programs.

These are just a few examples of how UCB and our researchers are working to ensure we remain at the forefront of a rapidly changing external environment. Thank you to all our clinical research colleagues for the leadership, resilience, and passion you bring each and every day to create value for people living with severe disease.

Check out ‘Our Science’ page to learn more and follow our continued external partnering and collaboration on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook!