Blog
Clinical Transformation:
Results From Biopharma and CRO Leaders
Oct 13, 2025 | François Caijo
Oct 13, 2025 | François Caijo
This year at Veeva R&D and Quality Summit in Madrid and Boston, biopharma companies, sites, and contract research organizations (CROs) shared how their organizations innovate and achieve efficiency amidst clinical trial complexity. Discussions centered around simplifying and standardizing operations for better experiences across sponsors, CROs, sites, and patients.
For example, Amgen’s Executive Director of Global Statistical Programming, David Hansen, shared how the company is preparing to scale transformative change. He echoed the sentiment of Scott Skellenger, SVP and CIO at Amgen that “with Veeva, we’re unlocking new capabilities for our end-to-end trial operations to further strengthen our ability to bring innovative treatments to patients with speed and scale.”
Below are recent clinical data outcomes achieved by the industry:
Improving end-to-end efficiency and streamlining processes
- Merck: Shared some of the early value realized by simplifying trial operations with the Veeva Clinical Platform and rethinking ways of working, including:
- Faster study process set-up by 25%
- Faster external data ingestion by 75%
- No downtime for Veeva EDC exchanges
- Reduced system downtime by 90%
“We don’t have the pain points we had in the BV days (‘Before Veeva’) – the planned and the unplanned downtime, which is really a killer for CRAs and sites.” – Jennifer Scheller Senior VP, Head of Global Clinical Trial Operations
- GSK: Discussed its approach to risk-based data management and the power of visualizations in Veeva CDB: “The clean patient tracker is a powerful tool in achieving risk-based data management by visualizing all CDB data.” – Valerie Balosso, Senior Director Data Strategy and Management.
With Veeva EDC and CDB, GSK is achieving:
- FPA to go-live on average 9 weeks
- LSLV to DBL on average four weeks for priority studies
- Accelerated DBL for submission up to one week
- 80% standardization across studies
“We have a host of bespoke tools and a tendency to overcustomize, so our goal moving forward is to simplify our operating model by shifting to out-of-the-box Veeva tools.” – Jo Kosinkas, Director, Clinical Data Management
Novo Nordisk: “To support the scale-up of our growing trial portfolio and making new drugs available faster to our patients, we’re seeing good signs of reducing trial setup timelines by 50% in Veeva EDC and CDB. We’re going for a standard setup timeline of just four weeks, and that’s without all the automations that we have planned.” – Ibrahim Kamstrup-Akkaoui, VP Data Systems Innovation.
Early targets include:
- Reduce time and effort on study build by 20%
- Reduce time taken to clean and monitor data by 20%
Watch the sessionBayer: By decommissioning 30+ applications and 80+ integrations and replacing them with Veeva Clinical Platform, Bayer predicts 15-25% savings from streamlining processes across departments.
“We will arrive at a simplified landscape that doesn’t take all our money, brains, and time to maintain” – Robert Bergann, Senior Director, Clinical Digital Innovation
Boehringer Ingelheim: The company consolidated 40+ systems and 70+ interfaces into a single clinical platform, and saved time on data transfer, monitoring, and support by automating site setup from Veeva CTMS to EDC.
“We have eliminated error-prone data transfer and have achieved cross-functional data flow” – Martin Heckenberger, Capability Owner Clinical Data Collection
Global medtech company: With 200 studies in Veeva EDC and 60 studies in CDB, the company averages 10 days from last patient last visit (LPLV) to database lock (DBL). The team recently expanded its use of Veeva’s Clinical Platform to include Veeva RTSM and Veeva eCOA, and now average three days for survey builds and have 92% compliance across all studies.
“This is the fastest that we have installed to date. We went live on the system 20 days after signing, thanks to our using the out-of-the-box application.” – Head of Clinical Data Operations
Modernizing eCOA operations and site experiences
UCB: The company now has 100% of eligible studies on Veeva eCOA, ahead of schedule. “We received positive feedback from patients and site staff, and are delivering a positive ROI, projected to save millions.” – Edwin Erkens, Chief Digital Technology Officer
- Syneos Health: Faster eCOA builds support diverse studies and sponsors. “Veeva is taking the correct approach to eCOA libraries: obtaining copyright holder approvals in advance, removing the need for screenshot reviews, and accelerating builds. This leads to less complexity and more efficiency” – Talar Hopyan, Global Head, Clinical Surveillance and Training
- Top 20 Biopharma and global research site: The biopharma and site shared their journey to enable EHR-to-EDC to reduce site burden. The site conducted a validation study, using IgniteData, which confirmed a 58% increase in productivity and 99% reduction in errors. The biopharma discussed its plans to go live with its first site network for its first study and expects to see, for example, reduced number of overall queries with this integration.
- Celerion: Focused on the five star reviews from patients using Veeva eCOA with real-time access to study documentation and notifications. The CRO discussed process improvements with a connected platform, such as streamlined subject management and protocol deviations. “These were things that we were doing in disparate systems, and now it’s in one central place. That has been an absolute game changer for us. Our compliance has increased significantly.” – Staci McDonald, Vice President of Global Clinical Operations
Gaining clinical data ownership and oversight
Atorus and emerging biotech: The emerging biotech partnered with Atorus’ data management team to bring Veeva EDC and CDB in house. The teams are achieving greater build efficiency with each study through CRF reuse, increased sponsor oversight with Veeva CDB, and reduced time to DBL.
“We didn’t think that we had the staff, the infrastructure, or the SOPs to be able to bring Veeva EDC in-house. But it took a lot less time than I imagined.” – Associate Director, Clinical Data Management, Emerging Biotech
“Being able to use oversight within the system feels like a dream come true. Veeva CDB eliminates the mess that comes up from time to time.” – Christine Kanalis, Executive Director, Clinical Data Management, Atorus
- Immunotherapy biotech: The company increased efficiency and reduced manual entry by replacing disparate systems with connected Veeva Clinical Platform applications, including Veeva EDC, CTMS, eTMF, RTSM, and Payments. Early successes include:
- 50% faster build times
- Expedited regulatory submissions with automated transfer from eTMF and CTMS to RIM
“Our effort to connect the study across different applications has gone from three months to five minutes. Checking two radio boxes on the EDC side.” – Senior IT Business Relationship Manager Clinical and Regulatory
Continuing the journey
- Faster study process set-up by 25%
- Faster external data ingestion by 75%
- No downtime for Veeva EDC exchanges
- Reduced system downtime by 90%
“We don’t have the pain points we had in the BV days (‘Before Veeva’) – the planned and the unplanned downtime, which is really a killer for CRAs and sites.” – Jennifer Scheller Senior VP, Head of Global Clinical Trial Operations
- FPA to go-live on average 9 weeks
- LSLV to DBL on average four weeks for priority studies
- Accelerated DBL for submission up to one week
- 80% standardization across studies
“We have a host of bespoke tools and a tendency to overcustomize, so our goal moving forward is to simplify our operating model by shifting to out-of-the-box Veeva tools.” – Jo Kosinkas, Director, Clinical Data Management
Novo Nordisk: “To support the scale-up of our growing trial portfolio and making new drugs available faster to our patients, we’re seeing good signs of reducing trial setup timelines by 50% in Veeva EDC and CDB. We’re going for a standard setup timeline of just four weeks, and that’s without all the automations that we have planned.” – Ibrahim Kamstrup-Akkaoui, VP Data Systems Innovation.
Early targets include:
- Reduce time and effort on study build by 20%
- Reduce time taken to clean and monitor data by 20%
Bayer: By decommissioning 30+ applications and 80+ integrations and replacing them with Veeva Clinical Platform, Bayer predicts 15-25% savings from streamlining processes across departments.
“We will arrive at a simplified landscape that doesn’t take all our money, brains, and time to maintain” – Robert Bergann, Senior Director, Clinical Digital Innovation
Boehringer Ingelheim: The company consolidated 40+ systems and 70+ interfaces into a single clinical platform, and saved time on data transfer, monitoring, and support by automating site setup from Veeva CTMS to EDC.
“We have eliminated error-prone data transfer and have achieved cross-functional data flow” – Martin Heckenberger, Capability Owner Clinical Data Collection
Global medtech company: With 200 studies in Veeva EDC and 60 studies in CDB, the company averages 10 days from last patient last visit (LPLV) to database lock (DBL). The team recently expanded its use of Veeva’s Clinical Platform to include Veeva RTSM and Veeva eCOA, and now average three days for survey builds and have 92% compliance across all studies.
“This is the fastest that we have installed to date. We went live on the system 20 days after signing, thanks to our using the out-of-the-box application.” – Head of Clinical Data Operations
UCB: The company now has 100% of eligible studies on Veeva eCOA, ahead of schedule. “We received positive feedback from patients and site staff, and are delivering a positive ROI, projected to save millions.” – Edwin Erkens, Chief Digital Technology Officer
Atorus and emerging biotech: The emerging biotech partnered with Atorus’ data management team to bring Veeva EDC and CDB in house. The teams are achieving greater build efficiency with each study through CRF reuse, increased sponsor oversight with Veeva CDB, and reduced time to DBL.
“We didn’t think that we had the staff, the infrastructure, or the SOPs to be able to bring Veeva EDC in-house. But it took a lot less time than I imagined.” – Associate Director, Clinical Data Management, Emerging Biotech
“Being able to use oversight within the system feels like a dream come true. Veeva CDB eliminates the mess that comes up from time to time.” – Christine Kanalis, Executive Director, Clinical Data Management, Atorus
- 50% faster build times
- Expedited regulatory submissions with automated transfer from eTMF and CTMS to RIM
Biopharma companies and CROs are achieving faster study timelines, improved patient experiences, and major cost savings with a connected platform approach. These outcomes highlight the advantages of focusing on user needs and building strong partnerships. If you’re looking to transform your clinical trials and learn more from industry leaders who are driving change, Veeva R&D and Quality Summit provides the opportunity for insights and connections to start your own platform journey.
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