ACT Brief: Clinical Trial Trends and 2026 Outlook, AI Agents and Workforce Transformation, and Degrader-Antibody Conjugate Partnership

This is the Applied Clinical Trials Brief—your fast track to the latest insights shaping clinical operations and drug development.

• In a new ACT video, industry leaders discussed 2026 trends including site operational burden, patient access expansion beyond established centers, AI implementation moving from pilots into daily operations, and methodological shifts toward analyzing multiple outcomes in single primary analyses. The consensus pointed to balancing efficiency with equity in trial design.
• In a new Q&A, building on his recent video interview, Krishna Cheriath, VP and head of clinical research digital data and AI at Thermo Fisher Scientific, introduced an augmentation scale defining how agentic AI will reshape trial roles from level zero through level four over the next two years. Successful adoption requires reimagining business processes for AI-by-design, upskilling talent to use it wisely, and workforce planning now to manage the transition from human to human-plus-digital roles.
• Roche and C4 Therapeutics expanded their partnership with a $1 billion collaboration to develop degrader-antibody conjugates combining targeted protein degradation with antibody-drug conjugation. The approach introduces a catalytic mechanism of action intended to improve therapeutic index versus conventional cytotoxic ADC payloads, with two initial programs targeting undisclosed oncology indications.

That's all for today's ACT Brief. Join us tomorrow for more updates shaping clinical operations and drug development. Thanks for listening.