Medidata Celebrates Clinical Trials Day 2024

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 patient treatments. They represent a vital puzzle piece that must be fully assembled before seeking and gaining regulatory approval. Clinical trials are a care option for any patient with a medical condition requiring treatment and often are a beacon of hope for patients who have exhausted all standard treatments.

Raising awareness for clinical trials is also important to encourage participation. Participants are essential for clinical trials’ continued progress and success. However, studies have shown that most patients are unaware or unsure that clinical trials are an option for care 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 24,000 studies are 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 over 4,094,000 in 2024.

The clinical trial landscape has evolved rapidly over recent years, with 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, which have gained wide adoption. The expanded use of DCTs and innovative digital technologies benefits all parties involved, as these innovations offer patient-centric and site-centric solutions that reduce patient and site 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 critical for increasing diversity in clinical trials throughout the clinical trial landscape. When developing treatments for the world, these drugs, biologics, and medical devices must be tested in diverse patient groups to evaluate safety and effectiveness across people of different races, ethnicities,  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 25 Years

Medidata has made impossible stories possible by driving change and enabling innovation through its innovative, scalable, cloud-based platform. Its end-to-end clinical solutions are unified on the Medidata Platform (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

Medidata’s commitment to modernizing clinical data management, generating AI-powered insights, maintaining clinical trial transparency, and developing patient-facing technologies supported two-thirds of new innovative drugs in 2023 across multiple therapeutic areas. Medidata has partnered with more than 2,200 customers—which translates to more than 1.5 million users—to help them execute 33,000+ studies with 10+ million patients and healthy participants. 

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 supports modern and innovative clinical trials.