In an interview with ACT senior editor Andy Studna at the 2025 DIA Global Annual Meeting, Carie Pierce, SVP, global head of growth & business development, DIA, discusses the growing emphasis on meaningful patient inclusion in clinical trial design and the importance of cross-sector collaboration to drive innovation in the clinical research ecosystem.
ACT: What are some of the most exciting themes or trends in clinical research you’re looking to explore at this year’s Global Annual Meeting?
Pierce: I'm starting to hear more of an evolution, instead of patient-centric trials, but now like patient-included thought leadership, so getting patients to really be part of those clinical trial boards, helping to give advice on protocols, and not just doing it for the sake of saying, “Check the box that we had a patient,” but really making it a critical part. We heard the regulators talk about that this morning too, that there are many endpoints that they wouldn't even have thought to look at if it hadn't been for that really intimate involvement that they have with patients.
Then I think what's also very exciting is just that DIA gets to sit in the middle of this ecosystem, and we have innovators, academics, we have regulators, we have tech companies, we have folks like AWS and Microsoft and Oracle and all of these people really converging here, and we get to be that central nexus to understand what's happening, what's on all of their mind, and really be that bridge to helping to create those connections and ensuring that that ecosystem is talking to each other.
