In an interview with ACT senior editor Andy Studna at SCOPE Summit, Garty, chief technology officer, clinical data, provided his key takeaways from a panel he participated in on the growing interest around pragmatic studies.
ACT: What are some of your key takeaways from the panel you participated in on pragmatic trials?
Garty: Going in, pragmatic trials really talk about the delta that we have, I think, between the traditional clinical research that we have in the real world, and there's a gap that when you go through that you prove efficacy in a controlled environment, that doesn't actually mean that you are set up for success in the real world. There's a lot of policy that actually has to be changed in terms of recommendations of which therapies to treat with, so we need to bring in if we want to close the gap between when a Phase III trial ends and hospitals start administering the use of the products, we actually have to close that gap down. In a way, pragmatic trials are then feeding upstream into Phase III trials and giving us the ability to simplify and standardize what we do. A good example of reducing the costs and complexities of protocols, decreasing the amount of procedures a patient might have to endure, and even where they are in the world. All of those things can be addressed with what we have in terms of tools and capabilities, but we need to focus as an industry.
