SCDM 2024 – Opportunities and optimism abound for making clinical trials more patient- and site-centric

“The Festival of Opportunity” was the theme for the Society for Clinical Data Managers (SCDM) conference in Boston last week. I can’t think of a more appropriate sentiment for this exciting event, which gathered delegates from across the world, spanning small, medium and large pharma. The optimism was palpable from start to finish. 

Three important messages resonated for me throughout the event.  

First is a genuine and growing focus on patients taking part in trials. In an inspiring session, Marilyn Neault spoke of her journey with Parkinson’s Disease, the difficulty of participating in studies, and her strong desire to be informed of the results. I’ve written before about the importance of returning results to participants. Marilyn reinforced this capability as essential to trials that seek to be truly patient-centric. This includes letting patients know if they received a placebo or the active study drug. 

The second theme that resonated for me was a new urgency to bring human-centric technology to sites to ease their growing burden. Expectations on sites continues to increase, along with the number of different technologies site professionals must use and understand. Better solutions are required; solutions that truly make it simpler to manage and run studies. Our new colleagues from our recent acquisition of ClinOne joined us at the event, and it was exciting to share with sponsors the power of our combined solution set and expanding Single Sign On approaches. 

My final take away focuses on the strengthening assertion that paper data capture of Patient Reported Outcomes is to be avoided in all studies. A lively panel debate chaired by Debu Baruah from GSK and featuring Jean Paty from IQVIA, Demetris Zambas from Pfizer, and Tim Davis from Veeva explored many issues around ePRO, implementation best practices, and the use of dreaded paper. The panel agreed that electronic capture must be the first and only approach—delivering on the ALCOA principles, providing real-time data, and avoiding the many hidden costs of poor data quality and quantity. 

As I noted previously, a spirit of opportunity and optimism spanned the entire event, including the closing address from Mark Dant, founder of the Ryan Foundation. Through his emotional and incredible story of finding a cure for his son’s rare disease, Mark highlighted the vital importance of data management in bringing new cures to market. A truly meaningful and inspiring end to the conference. 

I’m already looking forward to SCDM 2025 in Baltimore!