{"id":79099,"date":"2024-09-18T12:53:45","date_gmt":"2024-09-18T10:53:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.veeva.com\/eu\/?p=79099"},"modified":"2025-07-31T14:53:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T12:53:33","slug":"how-a-top-20-pharma-engages-clinical-research-sites-to-improve-trial-execution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.veeva.com\/eu\/blog\/how-a-top-20-pharma-engages-clinical-research-sites-to-improve-trial-execution\/","title":{"rendered":"How a Top 20 Pharma Engages Clinical Research Sites to Improve Trial Execution"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the past five years, a surge of new technology has aimed to improve clinical research site engagement and trial execution. However, these well-intentioned solutions are often custom, standalone apps that require complex middleware and integrations. This forces sites to adopt dozens of sponsor-specific tools and build customized processes around them, increasing site burden with manual and error-prone processes. Site staff have less time and energy for patient engagement and oversight \u2014 critical aspects of successful clinical trials.<\/p>\n

In a recent poll of industry professionals, most sponsor respondents said they still send paper to sites for document exchange, end-of-study media, and safety distribution. <\/p>\n

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These challenges are compounded in the high-stakes process of study training,<\/a> where the timely and complete execution of training is critical not only for initiating clinical trials faster but also for maintaining overall patient oversight, which sponsors often track in spreadsheets. Missing study training documentation can lead to critical inspection findings, resulting in commercialization delays and lost revenue. The potential cost of receiving an FDA Form 483 can easily top $250,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Although most sponsors understand the importance of improving site engagement, it can be challenging to implement holistic strategies that don\u2019t add to existing technology siloes. Two clinical operations leaders at a top 20 pharma are leading the charge to improve global site engagement at their organization. They recently shared their strategies for improving site collaboration and training despite these industry challenges. <\/p>\n

Creating a holistic site engagement strategy<\/h2>\n

Before implementing Veeva Vault Study Training and Site Connect to streamline site engagement, the pharma\u2019s leaders struggled with manual processes in their site interactions. \u201cYou would see a room full of binders with case report forms, investigator site files, hundreds of pieces of paper all hand-delivered by the CRA or couriered to the site,\u201d remembers the head of clinical trial management. \u201cFrom paper logs to Excel trackers, every process was manual and time-consuming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s global clinical capability strategy lead \u2014 who oversees study-specific training \u2014 struggled with similar inefficiencies in training. These inefficiencies led to high costs and additional burden on sites. \u201cWe were flying doctors around the world to spend entire days in meeting rooms presenting slide decks,\u201d she explains. \u201cNot only did we need to document our training with wet-ink signatures, but we also had no oversight or true understanding of our site staff\u2019s actual learning needs. We didn\u2019t even know if our training was effective.\u201d <\/p>\n

They knew they needed to make a change. Their goals were to:<\/p>\n