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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Speeding Up Clinical Trials With Technology

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[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he past few years have seen a lot of focus on vaccines and clinical trials. With countries around the world and companies working hard on vaccines and treatments for COVID-19, the focus on clinical trials is more significant than at any time in human history.

While there is still so much about clinical trials the average person does not understand, most people know the essential details. They are aware that clinical trials involve two or more groups to test whether a specific vaccine or medication has the desired effect or any harmful side effects.

The good news is that using technology such as Clinical Ink, the process of starting and completing clinical trials is likely to speed up a lot in the near future.

Below is a guide that explains the timeframe of clinical trials and how we can speed them up.

Why Clinical Trial Speed Matters

Clinical trials are the long and arduous process that companies must go through when bringing a new drug to the market. They are necessary when scientists discover any potential vaccine, treatment, or prophylactic.

There are several phases to clinical trials, such as Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3. Such phases typically involve people, as comprehensive testing has been done in the lab and on animals before the trial gets to Phase 1.

Only after a trial goes through all three phases and shows extremely promising results does it receive approval from organizations such as the United States Food and Drug Administration.

Companies want to increase the speed of clinical trials for two reasons. If they can get a drug out to market faster, they can help many people who may be suffering without the appropriate treatment for an illness. The second reason is financial, as the drug company can quickly commence sales of the medicine or vaccine and profit from it.

clinical trials

How Technology Can Help

Artificial intelligence is changing the way clinical trials happen from start to finish. Having AI tools available can transform the speed of a trial, as a lot of the processes that took a lot of time are handled automatically.

One of the most challenging jobs for any researcher during a clinical trial is to find the appropriate trial for the relevant patient. A study from 2018 showed that only around three per cent of cancer patients were enrolled in clinical trials, despite many medicines being in the pipeline to treat various cancers.

AI can speed up the process of finding people for a trial, as it can use natural language processing to receive and analyze relevant data of patients, such as EHR records. Having this information analyzed by a powerful AI ensures that instead of taking months to get a trial off the ground, the process can happen in weeks.

clinical trials

Bridging the Distance Gap

Another significant issue during clinical trials is distance. Patients can be too far away from the sites where clinical trials are taking place or from a physician’s office where they could regularly go to receive medicine and check in on their physical health.

Advancements in communications mean that connecting with patients in remote areas is a lot more convenient. Aside from video visits with providers, electronic consent forms, electronic data capture, and connected medical devices can help doctors and researchers monitor patients’ health during a trial in real-time, even if they are hundreds of miles away.

Will the Next Life-Saving Medicines Be Ready in Record Time?

The news that vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 would be ready within months of the virus becoming a worldwide pandemic was greeted with a great deal of surprise. While such news was extremely welcome, people were wary that clinical trials and procedures that took so long in the past were completed in record time.

Everything related to COVID-19 happened so quickly because the world’s governments poured billions into the companies working on vaccines and treatments.

Money can solve many issues, and it can often speed up the roadblocks that exist during clinical trials and research for both vaccines and medications.

The above guide explains that while not every future medicine will receive the same attention and funding as COVID-19 vaccines or treatments, technological progress can ensure clinical trials operate at a similar pace in the future.

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