2020 was the year clinical trials went mainstream despite being around for decades, with terms like; phase 3 clinical trials bandied around on the traditional and social media.
To put things into perspective, data suggests that the global clinical trials market size value, which stood at $49.4 billion in 2020, has a CAGR projection of 5.1% for the next six years to grow its market size to $69.9 billion by 2027, an anomaly which one can attribute to the global pandemic.
Well, some may begin to wonder; what are the implications for this growth?
In this post, we take a broader look at the outlook of clinical trials going into 2021.
What are clinical trials?
Before we delve into the trends for clinical trials going into 2021, let us begin by clearing the air on what clinical trials entails.
In simple terms, Clinical trials are research studies that test the administration of new medical procedures on people. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines clinical trials as a type of research that studies new tests and treatments and evaluates their effects on human health outcomes. It is worthy to note that the primary purpose of clinical trials is to find more reliable ways to prevent, protect, diagnose, or handle diseases.
How do clinical trials work?
Understanding how clinical trials work makes everyone appreciate the processes involved in advancing the state of health care.
Before these observational studies take place on humans, they are first tested on animals to ascertain their safety as mandated by regulatory bodies.
The clinical trial process requires that drugs and vaccines pass through certain phases before regulatory approval can happen. These phases include;
Phase 1: Trials occur with a small group of people to test the drug or vaccine for side effects and safety.
Phase 2: This test phase pushes for further safety, this time around, with more people (up to 300) than the phase 1 trials.
Phase 3 trials: Here, test trials occur on a broader set of diverse individuals across regions to further monitor for side and adverse effects. If a drug passes this stage, it can get regulatory approval for use.
Phase 4: This trial happens after the drug approval, and it covers a more extensive range of individuals and longer duration than all the previous phases.
Medical photo created by Freepik
Clinical trial trends in 2021
Coming from a year (2020) in which the global pandemic dominated every sphere, it is no surprise that going into 2021, the pandemic still grabs the headlines with respect to clinical trials even as vaccines continue to roll-out across the globe. However, here are some highlights to watch out for going forward;
A gradual shift back to other drug and vaccine development
As the roll-out of various Covid-19 vaccines proceeds, experts predict a gradual shift in attention from Covid-19 based studies to other research areas. This postulate relies on the premise that nothing unforeseen with respect to the pandemic like — a novel mutation of the virus— does occur.
In 2020, as the pandemic ravaged societal norms, over 28,000 global clinical trial sites were suspended due to the pandemic.
The assumption going into 2021 is the resumption of these trials as more people get vaccinated.
Digital technology will continue to reshape how clinical trials occur
The global pandemic brought about modern ways of doing things in almost every aspect of life, and clinical trials were not left behind. The nearly forceful-like adoption of digital solutions is proving to be a benefit after all. 2020 saw a rise in the adoption of virtual trials and remote monitoring by utilizing IoT enabled wearables to provide real-time data with respect to clinical trials.
Increasing adoption of AI and Machine learning
In a bid to save clinical trial costs and valuable time, pharma companies are now turning to machine learning technologies in the form of natural language processing (NLP) to extract and analyze data from numerous sources.
Besides data management, the possibility of using this technology to model diseases and diagnostics patterns makes the entire process of clinical trials easier.
Haven identified the major trends of clinical trials going into 2021, one segment that cuts across most of these trends from virtual events to remote monitoring and data management is the need to overcome language barriers and navigate communication bottlenecks.
One of our previous posts touched on the importance of accurate language translation during clinical research trials.
At Translationsinlondon, we have fine-tuned our services to handle clinical trials and other sensitive translation needs.
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