Looking back at DIA Europe 2023

Every year, we are delighted to attend DIA’s in-person conferences, where we can put our heads together with some of the best and the brightest in the life sciences industry to chat trends, best practices, and make predictions for innovation ahead.

 

We were recently in beautiful Basel, Switzerland for the Drug Information Association’s DIA Europe 2023 event, where we were a gold sponsor. The conference, which was “designed to drive insights into action,” focused on four content tracks: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Science, EU (European Union) Health Policy and Regulatory Strategy, Medical Devices and Combination Products, and Professional Development. Over three days, we heard from industry leaders about their thoughts, hopes, and concerns in these areas.

 

We emerged from the event with three core takeaways after listening in on panel discussions, attending conference sessions, and connecting with industry colleagues. We see that these three themes are top-of-mind for companies navigating increasingly complicated regulatory environments: innovation, patient-centricity, and automation.

We hear a common message loud and clear: leaders across the industry want to find new ways to work smarter, save costs, and maintain high security. Some of that innovation, certainly, will derive from greater adoption of technology, from shifting to a digital-first mindset, and from leveraging services like RWS’ structured content authoring and management. Each of these shifts can enable teams to expedite their work while ensuring its continued quality.

 

Innovation can also be found, however, off-screen—from collaborating more closely with vendors and partners in pursuit of common goals. Working together will be key in securing the best outcomes for patients most quickly—a key priority for every stakeholder in the industry.

Unsurprisingly, patient-centricity continues to be a core concern for various companies in the regulatory space. Those involved in clinical trial development are focused on how to improve trials for the future:

 

A post-COVID push to decentralized trials has catalyzed this focus on the patient experience, and we’re seeing thoughtful attempts to reduce the patient burden, both by implementing certain protocols, like bring-your-own-device, by involving patients in the creation of the design, and by assessing different operating systems and how they affect patients’ abilities to fill out PROs (patient-reported outcomes).

AI—and particularly generative AI—has taken every industry by storm in recent months, and the life sciences are no exception. While we noticed that multiple constituencies within the industry are still tiptoeing around the automation conversation, we have also seen significant interest in and appetite for AI-driven solutions that can expedite processes, save costs, and improve outcomes.

 

At RWS, we have been using AI-powered technologies like Machine Translation to enhance the productivity of our robust team of human linguists, technologists, and project managers for years. 

 

Our VP of Sales for Clinical Outcome Assessments, Manchandan Kaur Sandhu commented “it was refreshing to hear the true patient experience alongside industry leaders at DIA this year. The points around patient burden were particularly thought provoking. We strive for greater patient engagement and for the patient voice to be heard, but are we really listening to what patients are saying? Are we for example, using technology to its fullest potential in assisting and improving patient involvement in clinical development? It felt from the shared patient perspectives that we still have some way to go.”

 

Thank you to our partners at DIA for hosting another incredible event, and thank you to the presenters, sponsors, and attendees who kept us curious, interested, and passionate. We look forward to learning more at the next DIA event and, in the meantime, we are ready to help customers for whom innovation, patient-centricity, and automation are top-of-mind. We will see you next year at DIA Europe 2024!

 

Interested in learning more about how RWS can help with your clinical needs? Reach out today.