“Clinical trials are critical” in the battle against the global COVID-19 pandemic, Amy Abernathy, principal deputy commissioner and acting CIO of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), told attendees of the Veeva R&D and Quality Summit on Tuesday (October 13).

Meanwhile, though the coronavirus has been a catalyst speeding usage of new tools, technologies, and techniques, time will tell which innovations stick around when the pandemic is just a bad memory, Abernathy said. Acknowledging that COVID-19 has forever changed the clinical trial landscape, she cautioned that the healthcare industry and its regulators will still have to regroup in the future to more accurately determine which innovations truly advanced patient safety and data integrity. “We’re going to have to see what worked” and what didn’t, she said.

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