The Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) convened 150 clinical trials leaders, patients, policy influencers, and trialists in Washington, D.C., on May 22 for a dynamic meeting focused on the state of clinical trials. The agenda centered on problem solving—identifying core tensions preventing transformative change across the enterprise and workshopping actionable solutions.  

Dynamic presenters set the stage for the day with reflections on “where are we now?” in clinical trials ahead of targeted workshops. Speakers included former FDA commissioner Dr. Rob Califf, Donna Cryer from the Global Liver Institute, Ken Getz from the Tufts Center on the Study of Drug Development, Brad Hirsch of Highlander Health, Esther Krofah from The Milken Institute, and Ramita Tandon from Walgreens.   

Attendees discussed the five areas of CTTI’s Transforming Trials 2030 vision in depth in breakout sessions that were deftly facilitated by over 25 leaders in the enterprise.  

“CTTI expertly designed the workshops to make sure there were multiple perspectives represented throughout the day,” said attendee Jane Myles, Program Director at the Decentralized Trials and Research Alliance (DTRA). “Our discussions tackled tough topics which really challenged our critical thinking for change in clinical trials.” 

Workshops focused on targeting the most problems in patient centricity, trials in routine settings, quality and efficiency, data availability, and population health. In a workshop discussing privacy and responsible re-use of data, attendees identified data ownership as a critical roadblock. Attendees emerged from workshops eager to implement a federated learning network to solve this problem that includes artificial intelligence (AI) to improve the ease and speed of data sharing.  

“One of our goals for this meeting was to have all attendees really see themselves in the solutions we’re cocreating,” said CTTI Executive Director Morgan Hanger. “Together, we represent the trials enterprise so it’s incumbent upon all of us to drive change within our own corners of the clinical trials ecosystem.”  

CTTI plans to release a detailed summary of the meeting in late June to help engage more people from across the clinical trials enterprise on actionable next steps for this transformation.