In May this year, Clinical Trials Europe conducted a report on the uptake of decentralised and hybrid clinical trials across their regions. The results are unsurprising to many. Uptake is relatively low in any meaningful way, with some aspects applied but little evidence of broad adoption.
North America has shown the biggest surge in numbers of decentralised trials, but here, and in all other regions that contributed to the report, the barriers are similar:
1. Concerns re data privacy and reliability
2. Regulatory acceptance
3. Lack of awareness of validated technologies
4. Unclear data on ROI
There is broad acceptance that decentralised and hybrid trials improve participant access, engagement and continuation.
Australia has demonstrated our positional advantage for performing clinical trials while the rest of world continues to be impacted by surging impacts of the pandemic. Yet, uptake of this more adaptive approach is patchy, real evidence of barriers is not known and we continue to apply bandaid measures. The broad application of these technologies would enhance our competitive advantage. We must move now.
#clinicaltrials #decentralisedtrials #hybridtrials #virtualtrials#digitaltechnologies #regulation