Conclusion
For many patients, new drug discovery is a literal matter of life and death. As such, clinical trials, which are an essential step in the approval of these new, life saving drugs are more than just major commercial opportunities for the pharmaceutical industries, they are a collective good and continue to change lives for the better across the world.
Indeed, according to the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) Working Paper 25483, drugs launched after 1981 are estimated to have saved 149 million years of life in 2013. This figure obviously doesn't account for drugs released before 1981 and, more than 10 years after the publication of these figures, today’s figures on life years saved are, inevitably, far higher.
But, as we have stated throughout this piece, so many clinical trials fail, and in many cases, such failures could be avoided with better study design and governance.
Speaking to BioPharma Dive in 2019, Rosamund Round, Director, Patient Innovation Center at biopharmaceutical giant, Parexel, said “It’s no secret that the pharmaceutical industry is in crisis and the current clinical trial model is unsustainable.” That same article goes on to say that currently, 85% of all clinical trials fail to recruit enough patients and 80% are delayed due to recruitment problems with high dropout rates.
In this piece, we have presented what we believe is a better way to conduct clinical trials and overcome many of the expensive and time-consuming problems that result in poor study performance or delay. We understand, however, the amount of work and knowledge required to overhaul clinical trial processes in our safety-critical industry. If you're interested and you want some expert help, we can assist. Over the last decade, our highly qualified people have worked with a range of major pharmaceutical companies across the world, managing over 300 clinical studies in 90 countries, and in all therapeutic areas.
We hope you enjoyed this point of view and that it provided you with some useful ideas that you can implement to improve processes in your business. We believe that we can work together as an industry to bring about the next generation of innovative treatments, and we invite you to connect with us.
Sabrina Ioudarene-Benni
Life Sciences Portfolio Delivery Lead, Capgemini Engineering
sabrina.ioudarene-benni@capgemini.com
Caroline Micheletti-Candau, Lead Engineer / Architect - Pre-Sales Office, Capgemini Engineering
caroline.micheletti-candau@capgemini.com
