Study sites and sponsors could both benefit from learning to convert data from investigator meetings and other sources into meaningful metrics and actionable insights that can impact business strategy, a seasoned observer of the clinical research enterprise says.
The pharmaceutical industry collects data from its investigator meetings, speaker trainings, and ad boards, but often doesn’t have all necessary resources to convert this information into more useful forms, writes Chris Bryant, Senior Vice President for Commercial, Business Intelligence at Array, in a forthcoming column for the August 2024 issue of ACRP’s Clinical Researcher journal.
While the industry is far from alone in facing this challenge, Bryant notes that the kinds of information already being collected for compliance purposes—as well as to assess the return on investment or educational impacts of investigator meetings—have grown and become more accessible as meeting technology has become more sophisticated.
“While the intention is to gather more actionable insights, often the result is that organizers are either overwhelmed by raw data they don’t have time to correlate, or simply hand-pick the same few datasets they’ve used for years,” Bryant writes. “This is understandable but also a huge, missed opportunity. Data used correctly can yield a story about the meeting that is easy to understand and easier to act upon by both sponsors and trial leads.”
The focus needs to switch from collection to purposeful metrics optimization to make converting data to insights more seamless, Bryant urges, adding that this is not as daunting as it seems—the right technology partner should be able to help.
“Ultimately, you need to bridge the gaps between study teams, life science stakeholders, and technology providers,” Bryant adds. “[Also, to] really make the most of measurements and analytics though, you need to go beyond the demographic, contextual information and develop datasets around information” that can benefit your business.
Consider the information you’ve never received from a meeting before, Bryant advises, but which would influence how you develop or market a drug, or even just improve future meetings. Collect the same data across a series of meetings on the same topic (multiple regional investigator meetings for a global clinical trial, for example). Then measure and analyze those data to see what patterns emerge in the meetings themselves or in the attendees’ understanding or behavior. Benchmarking across all meetings and events enables you to look at meeting performance for ways to improve programming to meet your goals in the future.
In addition to this and other timely columns on hot topics in the field, the August 2024 issue of Clinical Researcher will include peer-reviewed articles on traveling the clinical research associate career pathway, measuring the impacts of decentralized clinical trials on quality management, participant outcomes, and data management, and exploring the role of multi-omics in enhancing cancer clinical trials.
Edited by Gary Cramer
