CRO/Sponsor

In this Q&A, Elizabeth Walsh, PMP, ACRP-CP, founder of Walsh Clinical Advisory and co-author of The Clinical Execution Blueprint, discusses the persistent misconceptions about sponsor accountability, why execution gaps originate long before study startup, and what genuine inspection readiness looks like when it is built in from the outset.

As agentic AI, automated data harmonization, and real-time monitoring reshape clinical development, the organizations seeing meaningful results are those that have invested in unified data infrastructure and disciplined governance rather than cycling through pilots without the foundation to scale them.

As clinical development grows increasingly complex and talent markets remain constrained, sponsors must evolve beyond binary outsourcing decisions to embrace a configurable functional service provider continuum that enhances operational optionality without requiring wholesale restructuring.

In this pilot episode of Beyond Compliance, Otis Johnson, PhD, MPA, founder and principal consultant at Vantix Operations, speaks with Paulo Limgenco, VP of business operations and ESG strategy lead at YPrime, about how sustainability is shifting from a compliance checkbox to a factor that shapes vendor selection, client trust, and long-term business value.

Clinical development operates as an integrated system where dependencies persist across phases and vendors, but treating contracts as execution handoffs creates invisible oversight gaps that surface later as vendor performance problems, timeline slips, or inspection findings.

AI agents operate only within workflows, but most organizations lack unified workflow management systems, making it difficult to identify where agents should be deployed or ensure they integrate effectively across connected business processes in clinical research.

The European Health Data Space reshapes CRO operations by transitioning them from data custodians to regulated users accessing data within secure, auditable environments, enabling cross-border research but requiring substantial investment in compliance, standardization, and methodological rigor.

In this Q&A, Gaynor Anders, chief delivery officer at Trialbee, discusses how the FDA's single pivotal trial shift is raising the stakes on patient recruitment, why the study-by-study model has persisted for so long, and what program-level recruitment actually requires from sponsors in terms of infrastructure, data sharing, and organizational change.

Clinical R&D modernization stalls through incremental optimization of individual workflows, but meaningful systemic change requires leaders to visualize structural relationships, understand hidden incentives, and identify leverage points that benefit the whole system rather than parts.

The traditional global-to-local communication model creates fragmented content through sequential adaptation, but a local-first approach using structured data and AI-orchestrated generation can embed stakeholder terminology and preferences from the start, reducing rework while improving clarity and relevance.

In this video interview, Gaynor Anders, chief delivery officer at Trialbee, identifies organizational silos, siloed budgets, and a study-centric mindset as the biggest barriers to shifting from study-by-study to programmatic recruitment—and explains what it actually takes to map a program that sponsors might not see at first.

Experience sampling captures real-time signals of site burden and operational friction at the moment they occur, providing earlier and more actionable insight than retrospective assessments and revealing workarounds before they compound into protocol deviations.

In this video interview, Gaynor Anders, chief delivery officer at Trialbee, outlines the organizational, budgetary, and technological changes sponsors need to make to move from study-by-study recruitment to a portfolio-level approach that keeps patients engaged across a therapeutic area.

The evolving role of medical affairs in connecting patients, physicians, and evidence generation.

In this video interview, Gaynor Anders, chief delivery officer at Trialbee, explains how the FDA's shift toward single pivotal trials is raising the stakes for sponsors on recruitment quality, feasibility precision, diversity, and retention—and why sponsors now say they get one shot to get it right.

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.

AI-enabled systems medicine could influence which populations are selected for trials, how biomarkers are validated, how products are positioned, how evidence is generated after launch, and how value is demonstrated to payers.

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.

In this video interview, Rob DiCicco, vice president of portfolio management at TransCelerate Biopharma, discusses how CTTI tabletop exercises are myth-busting perceived risk and why true progress requires partnership across regulators, sponsors, providers, and patients.

Protocol assumptions about patients, visit schedules, timelines, and vendors are rarely tested against operational reality until startup, but early engagement of experienced execution strategists can identify and mitigate feasibility gaps before commitments harden into expensive course corrections.

The FDA's launch of real-time clinical trial proof-of-concept studies signals a fundamental shift in regulatory oversight, one that most sponsors are not yet equipped to meet and that demands urgent investment in unified data infrastructure, quality-by-design practices, and protocol digitization.

In this Q&A, Raj Indupuri, CEO and co-founder of eClinical Solutions, discusses what the FDA's push toward continuous data review actually demands of sponsors operationally, why fragmented systems are the core obstacle, and how AI and real-world evidence fit into a more data-driven regulatory environment.

Discover how Quest Diagnostics puts its vast database of lab results to work and leverages patient and physician credibility to efficiently and effectively connect the best-fit patients to the clinical trials that will benefit from their participation.