The time has come for us to say goodbye to fellow attendees, as DIA 2022 wraps up today. The IQVIA team was especially excited to join so many of our fellow experts in drug development and clinical trials, leaders in regulatory, advocacy, pharmaceuticals and academia and the patients we aim to serve.

In the fight against COVID-19 over the last few years, we experienced a united urgency from the wider healthcare ecosystem to embrace innovation and find viable solutions to speed up decision-making and set up and execute trial programs with patients in mind. That is why sharing our firsthand experience and insights in working through the pandemic with increased innovation at this year’s DIA was important to do.

Through various DIA sessions and panel discussions and more, IQVIA experts helped to shed light on how to successfully continue, and in some cases, accelerate drug development by aiming to make intelligent connections between expertise, unparalleled breadth of data, tech-enabled solutions and advanced analytics. These activities provided the opportunity for experts to team up with other industry luminaries to discuss perspectives, best practices and lessons learned for various stages of drug development.

Some notable topics of discussion, included:

• Enhancing patient centricity in clinical trials:
• President of Design and Delivery Innovation at IQVIA Cyndi Verst led the Innovation Theater presentation, “Redefining Patient Centricity in a Post-Pandemic Era”. As the global COVID-19 pandemic forced our industry to think outside the status quo box, Cyndi discussed the innovative ways IQVIA successfully engaged patients, leveraged transformative technologies and accelerated trial processes by keeping focus on one thing: patient centricity. Looking ahead, the session explored how to take the best of these innovations and turn them into patient-centric best practices for future clinical trials.
• In aiming to better address diversity in clinical trials, IQVIA experts participated in several key sessions:
• In the “Approaches to Addressing Diversity and Inclusion in Clinical Research” session, Vice President of the Analytics Center of Excellence at IQVIA Lucas Glass shared his recommendations on how sponsors can leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to better inform trial site selection and optimize enrollment among diverse patient populations.
• During the “Leveraging Real-World Evidence (RWE) to Address Diversity Gaps in Randomized Clinical Trials: Regulatory, Clinical and Other Considerations” DIAmond session, IQVIA’s Chief Scientific Officer Nancy Dreyer chaired a panel discussion on how the lack of diversity in trials can impact the reliability of evidence-based care algorithms and to provide attendees with insight how RWE can supplement randomized clinical trials to fill evidence gaps and better address diversity.
• The many uses of RWE in drug development:
• Through the Innovation Theater presentation on “RWE to Enhance Clinical Development”https://sched.co/zLXY. IQVIA’s Medical Affairs Category Lead for Real World Evidence Barbara Isquith Arone helped showcase the new uses of RWE, including: supporting trial design; providing context for interventional studies and helping to create practical approaches to the long term monitoring of cell and gene therapies.
• During the “Post-Approval Safety Studies: Approaches to Assessing Medication Exposure and Potential Safety Risks During Pregnancy,” Senior Principal of Real World Strategy and Innovation at IQVIA Lockwood Taylor shared insights on how RWD and related evidence from claims and electronic health record databases may help address some of the long-standing challenges in collecting pregnancy safety information in a post-marketing setting via registries and in evaluating drug safety during pregnancy.
• At the “FDA Real-World Evidence Guidance for Regulatory Approval: Implications for Evidence Needs for Payers and Population-Based Decision Makers and Healthcare Providers” forum, IQVIA’s Vice President of Real World Evidence Matthew Reynolds highlighted discuss what is necessary to ensure real-world data (RWD) using in generating real-world evidence (RWE) meets the new draft U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance recommendations.

The give and take of knowledge and experience we are able to have at this important industry meeting allows us to go back to our work more motivated and inspired to tackle the challenges of today’s clinical development environment. And, we know we can rely on strong collaborations with others to discover new paths and possibilities in clinical research for patients in need.

DIA 2022 is officially in the books! IQVIA thanks the organizers and attendees for another productive gathering!

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