Veeva R&D and Quality Summit, Europe: Leading the Way to Next-Generation Innovation

Jun 22, 2023 | Chris Moore

This year’s Veeva R&D and Quality Summit focused on putting patients at the heart of drug development and manufacturing innovation. Progress is underway, with a connected approach to clinical data and operations facilitating collaboration in the research ecosystem. Regulatory teams are becoming more productive during submissions and publishing, which were previously a time-consuming phase of the process. New advances will help predict adverse events in safety, recurring events in quality, and elasticity of supply during commercial manufacturing.

To meet our full potential, we need to go further and routinely run trials that are 25% faster and cheaper than today, while expanding access for hard-to-reach patient groups. Here are the most important Summit highlights for the path ahead.

1. Europe’s biggest R&D and Quality Summit, centered on patient innovation

Nearly 900 biopharma professionals representing 31 countries and 172 companies joined Veeva R&D and Quality Summit in Madrid. The content-rich agenda spanned five Zones: Clinical, Quality & Manufacturing, Regulatory, Safety, and Vault Platform. Over two days, attendees discussed ideas on delivering for patients at each stage of drug development and manufacturing.

2. New collaborations have real impact on drug development

During the keynote, leading companies explained why new approaches to collaboration are leading to better outcomes. Chief Digital Technology Officer Edwin Erckens described how UCB is partnering with Veeva on electronic Patient Reported Outcomes (ePRO) to increase patient representation and inclusivity in clinical research. Jasmine Ong, global program lead for RIM transformation at Roche, discussed how regulatory teams saved over 700 hours during FDA submissions by eliminating disjointed systems. And Pilar Carrero, vice president of global safety at LEO Pharma, outlined her vision of how safety will transform business intelligence when it becomes a strategic partner to other functions.

The closing keynote was given by Nick Hartshorne Evans, founder and CEO of Pumping Marvellous, who described his personal experiences of living with chronic heart failure and why involving patients earlier in R&D and Quality will result in better treatments.

Pilar Carrero, vice president of global safety for LEO Pharma, on stage at Veeva R&D and Quality Summit in June 2023.

3. Connected data and teams increase decision confidence

More than 50 customer speakers shared how their companies are advancing data management, cross-functional collaboration, and industry partnerships to make confident decisions. Expert speakers included:

• Tony Lewis (director and trial operations product owner at GSK), Emma Forrest (head of clinical operations and project management at Recordati), and Trevor Griffiths (senior director of clinical data management at Syneos Health) discussed how their companies are advancing digital trials and priorities for the future.
• Nicolás Maldonado, executive director of global quality systems and compliance at Gilead Sciences, explained why it’s critical to embed a culture of continuous improvement within biopharma organizations. Gilead Sciences is elevating quality standards across the company by collecting, reviewing, and acting on data and nurturing closer relationships with external partners.
• Gerhard Schlueter, vice president for regulatory affairs strategic and technical operations, described how Bayer shifted its culture to embrace digital transformation in regulatory operations. A successful transition relies on thoughtful stakeholder communication, listening and acting on feedback from across the organization, and tailoring the approach for local regions.
• Pilar Carrero of LEO Pharma focused on the importance of a single source of truth for case data to reduce the time spent on manual tasks — and anticipate safety issues before a problem ever arises for a patient.
• Martin Helling, executive director and One Medicine Platform program manager, shared how Boehringer Ingelheim uses Veeva Development Cloud to transform product development. Despite the challenges of a simultaneous roll-out, Boehringer Ingelheim is on track to combine seven major areas onto the same platform.

4. Veeva Heroes: Recognizing extraordinary people advancing patient centricity

Veeva honors customers who have had a significant impact in their organizations and the industry. These Veeva Heroes are improving processes and navigating complex change to advance patient-centric outcomes. We celebrated and thanked Veeva Heroes from Almac Clinical Services, Bayer, GSK, OM Pharma, Recordati, Sanofi CHC, and Syneos Health.

5. Announcements on R&D Business Consulting and UCB collaboration

We announced the expansion of Veeva’s business consulting services to help life sciences companies improve efficiency across the product development lifecycle. Veeva R&D Business Consulting will work closely with customers to apply unique industry data, develop new digital operating models, and optimize technology use across clinical, regulatory, and safety.

We also announced a new collaboration between Veeva and UCB. The collaboration will see UCB adopt Veeva ePRO and Veeva eConsent, to provide a patient-centric, digital experience to study participants and actively influence the strategic direction of these and other applications (read the press release). Together, we aim to set a new industry standard for digital clinical trials with multiple applications that meet patients’ unique needs.

Watch the Veeva R&D and Quality Summit keynote on Veeva Connect.