Marwan Fathallah on the Trends Driving the Conversation at the 2026 DIA Global Annual Meeting

Full interview summary

In a recent video interview with Applied Clinical Trials at the 2026 DIA Global Annual Meeting, Marwan Fathallah, president and CEO of DIA Global, reflected on the themes and energy shaping this year's meeting and shared what has most excited him in the first half of 2026. He opened by framing the conference as a convergence point for the most consequential trends in the industry—AI, rapidly advancing science, regulatory policy shifts, and the geopolitical instabilities affecting global drug development. He credited the breadth and quality of the thought leadership gathered at DIA, from regulatory agency heads and innovators to academics and patient advocates, as a reflection of the industry's shared urgency around these issues.

On leadership, Fathallah was emphatic that navigating the current landscape of uncertainty requires more than technical solutions—it requires leaders who are willing to understand the full ecosystem and build relationships across all stakeholders. His message to the C-suite leaders and agency heads he regularly engages with is consistent: vision and purpose are non-negotiable, and the leaders most likely to move things forward are the ones investing time in understanding the continuum of care rather than operating within their own organizational silos.

Looking back at the year's most exciting developments, Fathallah highlighted three areas. Obesity was front of mind following a plenary featuring former FDA Commissioner Rob Califf and leadership from Novo Nordisk, where the conversation extended well beyond weight loss to the broader human health implications of the breakthrough therapies now in the market. He also pointed to healthcare AI—distinct from consumer AI—as a force that is meaningfully accelerating the discovery of therapies that were out of reach just two years ago. And he closed with genuine enthusiasm for the cell and gene therapy space, including CAR T-cell therapies, personalized medicine, and gene editing, describing the pace of progress there as something the field could not have anticipated even a few years ago.