Patient Participation

Eligibility criteria alone rarely predict enrollment, which depends more on trust, hope, and fear, requiring relationship-based community engagement paired with behavioral readiness assessments rather than transactional outreach.

In this Q&A, Liz Beatty, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Inato, discusses how real-time patient data is reducing non-enrolling sites, why sponsor-specific technology remains the biggest barrier to adoption, and what a shift toward cross-asset site partnerships could mean for enrollment efficiency.

When clinical trial teams screen for "tech-savvy, engaged" participants, they're often running a second, unwritten eligibility criterion that systematically excludes the populations the study drug is actually meant to treat.

From real-time evidence generation to federated AI to site-level data integration, ACT spoke with seven experts at DIA 2026 on the trends and challenges defining clinical trial operations today.

Outdated payment methods like prepaid cards and checks create administrative burden and retention friction, but modern flexible payment platforms with multiple payout options and global reach can improve participant experience without adding compliance complexity.

From planning one Phase III trial at a time to digital standardization on repeat.

Patient Engagement Strategies in Anti-Obesity Medication Clinical Trials: Addressing Drop Out Rate and Improving Retention

In this Q&A, Del Smith, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Acclinate, discusses how structural and relational barriers continue to limit participation from underrepresented communities in clinical trials—and what it takes to build the kind of trust that translates into lasting research impact.

Despite political headwinds, life sciences leaders are holding their ground on DEI, but translating organizational commitment into representative enrollment requires structural changes to protocol design, site selection, and community engagement that most of the industry has yet to fully make.

Webinar Date/Time: Thursday, June 4th, 2026 at 11am EDT|8am PDT|4pm BST|5pm CEST

Pediatric trial participation shapes children's and caregivers' long-term psychological outcomes, yet protocol design often overlooks experience as a variable affecting recruitment, retention, and data integrity—a gap increasingly recognized by regulators and quality standards

Limited evidence surrounds direct-to-patient clinical trial site models, despite growing literature showing that decentralized approaches can improve patient access, enrollment performance, and operational efficiency while reducing participant burden.

Webinar Date/Time: Thu, May 28, 2026 1:00 PM EDT

Zentails announced the first dosage of Azenosertib administered in its phase III Aspenova trial to test azenosertib vs chemotherapy in Cyclin E1-positive platinum-resistant ovarian cancer.

Early integration of clinical, operational, and patient-level insights during trial development can help close the gap between evidence generation and commercial performance, improving alignment between product value and real-world adoption.

In this video interview, Hal Green, senior solution architect and life sciences vertical lead EMEA at Loftware, traces how small documentation errors move through a fragmented supply chain and ultimately erode the trust that patients and regulators depend on.

Payment experience—including timeliness, transparency, and consistency—is emerging as a key operational factor influencing site financial stability, working relationships with sponsors and CROs, and overall clinical trial execution.

In this video interview, Del Smith, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Acclinate, outlines what a practical, sustained community engagement framework looks like in practice and how sponsors can translate that investment into faster, more efficient, and more representative enrollment.

Behavioral science reveals how recruitment failures, site disengagement, and underrepresentation in clinical trials are rooted in early design decisions, and what sponsors can do to address them before they become costly problems.

In this Q&A, Krishna Cheriath, VP and head of clinical research digital data and AI at Thermo Fisher Scientific, examines how AI is reshaping clinical operations—from case intake and trial design to site burden reduction and the emerging reality of agentic AI in the workforce.

In this video compilation, industry experts share their perspectives on the operational, technological, and methodological shifts defining clinical research in 2026.

Pharma modernization initiatives stall not from lack of ambition but from expanding governance layers that distance leadership from execution, slowing decision velocity and delaying the systems integration that drives competitive advantage.

In part 3 of this three-part series, behavioral science reveals that clinical trial diversity cannot be achieved through last-minute recruitment efforts, but requires designing protocols, sites, and enrollment strategies around the real barriers and needs of underrepresented communities from the outset.