SCOPE 2023

SCOPE lines up talks on clinical trial enrollment strategies and technologies for 2023 event

31-Jan-2023 - Last updated on 02-Feb-2023 at 10:21 GMT

The Summit for Clinical Ops Executives (SCOPE) is back with a four-day schedule that digs into strategies and technologies for tackling the perpetual problem of patient recruitment.

Having gone fully virtual in 2021, SCOPE adopted a hybrid physical-online approach last year. More than 75% of people attended in-person. This year, in-person attendance is on track to top 95%, with the list of participants registered to attend physically including people from AbbVie, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer, and a host of other leading drug developers.

The event gets underway on Feb. 6 in Orlando, Florida. The centerpiece of the first day is an interactive panel on addressing racial inequity in clinical trials, health, and education. Moderated by Sanofi’s Vicky DiBiaso, the panel features speakers from Merck, Novartis, and several universities.

SCOPE begins in earnest the next day with a series of sessions on the patient experience, running clinical trials during a global crisis, making studies more diverse, and overcoming recruitment challenges. The session on overcoming recruitment challenges in global trials is a panel discussion, in which Regeneron’s Amy Froment will talk to representatives of Bayer, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Merck about how to meet diversity goals and help sites fully use recruitment tools and materials.

Enrollment planning to patient engagement

Feb. 8 is the pivot point of the event, when, from lunch onward, the focus of SCOPE will shift, from enrollment planning and recruitment, to patient engagement and retention through communities and technology.

Eli Lilly’s Jeff Ramsey will get the second phase of the event underway with a presentation about the use of digital recruitment tools to engage with patients, refer them to sites, and monitor the effectiveness of campaigns.

Discussions of next-generation data sources dominate the afternoon. The FDA’s Amy Abernethy is among the speakers and will talk about how the agency’s use of real-world data evolved during the pandemic and the need for quality longitudinal datasets.

On the final day, leaders from AstraZeneca and Gilead will discuss how to avoid overloading patients and sites with technologies, and Merck scientists will present research showing that patients prefer at-home sampling methods with novel collection devices and explain how the feedback shaped their practices.