Medidata Celebrates Clinical Trials Day 2022

On May 20, Medidata is celebrating Clinical Trials Day. Since 2005, the research world has come together on this date to raise awareness about clinical trials, honor the people who make clinical research happen, and thank them for their efforts in improving public health. This marks the date of what is considered the very first comparative clinical trial, when in 1747 James Lind designed a trial to investigate scurvy and, unknowingly, paved the way for future clinical research. 

Clinical trials are essential to the development and availability of new treatments for patients. They represent an important piece of the puzzle that must be fully assembled before seeking and gaining marketing approval. Clinical trials are a care option for any patient with a medical condition that requires treatment considerations. And often, they are a beacon of hope to patients who have exhausted all standard treatments.

Raising awareness for clinical trials is also important to encourage participation. Participants are essential for trials’ continued progress and success. However, studies have shown that the overwhelming majority of patients are unaware or unsure that clinical trials are an option at the time of diagnosis; most of the respondents who were asked said they would have been willing to enroll had they known it was possible.

The Future of Clinical Trials

According to Clinicaltrials.gov, approximately 21,000 studies are actively recruiting in the United States. The number of globally registered trials on that website has exploded since its inception, increasing from 2,119 in 2001 to almost 400,000 in 2022.

The clinical trial landscape has evolved rapidly over recent years, with the introduction of new treatment paradigms and sophisticated trial protocols, including those with complex adaptive designs, multiple divergent data sources, high data volume, Synthetic Control Arms®, and decentralization. The COVID-19 pandemic turbocharged the implementation of decentralized clinical trial (DCT) designs and digital health technologies—both of which have gained wide adoption. And this positive trend will likely persist beyond COVID-19.

The expanded use of DCTs and digital technologies benefits all parties involved, as these innovations offer patient-centric solutions that reduce patient burden, improve patient recruitment and retention efforts, allow for collecting longitudinal objective data, increase trial efficiencies, and lower overall trial costs. 

Decentralized trials are also a critical tool in the effort to increase diversity in clinical trials throughout the clinical trial landscape. When developing treatments for the world, it’s crucial that these treatments are tested in diverse patient groups to evaluate safety and effectiveness across people of different races and ethnicities, as well as different ages and genders. Too often, this diverse representation is lacking in clinical trials. DCTs make trials more accessible to patients regardless of demographics, location, or socioeconomic status. 

Medidata Has Powered Clinical Trials for Over 20 Years

Medidata has made impossible stories possible by driving change and enabling innovation through its innovative, scalable cloud-based platform. Its clinical solutions are unified on the Medidata Clinical Cloud® (see image below). This platform allows for streamlined clinical trial workflows, central management of studies and clinical data, seamless integration with existing systems, and improved trial performance and data quality.

Medidata’s commitment to modernizing clinical data management, generating AI-powered insights, maintaining clinical trial transparency, and developing patient-facing technologies helped it support two-thirds of new innovative drugs in 2021 across multiple therapeutic areas. Medidata has partnered with more than 2,000 customers—which translates to more than 1.5 million users—to help them execute on 27,000+ studies with 8+ million patients and healthy participants. 

Medidata is also proud of the support that it has provided to the clinical trials industry throughout the pandemic by partnering with 229 sponsors to power more than 475 COVID-19 studies. This enabled the continuity of many ongoing trials and supported the development of vaccines and therapies. Medidata leveraged its trusted and innovative technologies to complete builds quickly within 2–4 weeks using Medidata Rave, Medidata Patient Cloud, and Medidata Acorn AI solutions. 

Please join Medidata in celebrating Clinical Trials Day this year by raising clinical trial awareness and honoring clinical research professionals everywhere!

Click here to learn more about how Medidata is supporting modern and innovative clinical trials.