Author: MRN
September is always busy but exciting – with CRAACO, Partnership with Sites, and DPHARM making for a month of learning and connecting, and 2025 certainly delivered! The team reveled in the opportunity to have engaging and insightful discussions on the power of patient-centric trials, and learn more about what patients, sites and sponsors are truly up against when it comes to successfully participating in in a clinical trial.
The team shared their key takeaways and learnings from each event:
CRAACO
The central focus of many of the discussions the team had was centered on how site networks, such as MRN’s global, community-focused Site Network, is capable of bringing more trials to where patients already are. This includes settings where patients are already receiving care, such as community hospitals and/or through their local doctor. Community-focused site networks then have the ability to work with local care providers, who are usually trial-naïve, to bring clinical trials into their facilities by providing training, systems and, if needed, additional staffing support – all enabling the local team to run trials that will continue to benefit their patients.
This approach not only provides greater access to care but also has the power to alleviate the many burdens patients and sites face when it comes to participating in trials, while simultaneously driving greater investment from sponsors as they see higher enrollment and retention rates from these sites over time.
Partnerships with Sites
It was all in the name this year, with keen insights provided by the speakers – including our own Kerry Leyden, who shared insights into just how successful sites can be with the right support (with MRN’s support a Lupus trial has increased its enrollment target by 250%) – on why and how sponsors and vendors can be better partners to and support sites.
Joan Chambers, Snr. Consultant for Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, shared just how new trial execution models are reaching into communities and providing patients with direct access to clinical research without being as hampered by the barriers to participation as those participating in older, more traditional modeled clinical trials are. While Panel Discussions addressed topics such as the Sponsor-Site relationship and how this needs to move beyond a transactional relationship into one that symbiotic – ensuring that sites, patients and sponsors achieve success in clinical trials.
DPHARM
AI and its role in clinical trials – from set-up to patient screening to data cleaning and submissions – was one of the hot topics, across all tracks, over the two days of DPHARM 2025. What was most interesting was that the focus was more geared towards how AI can help drive improvement internally by using “agentic AI” to accelerate, optimize and refine internal processes. However, there was no general consensus on who should be providing the tech to enable this. Should it be internal, or provided by CROs / SMOs? There was also less of a focus on how AI can be utilized to access more real-world data to find patients – yet it is something that, over time, will accelerate and become key in identifying and pairing patients with the right trials.
Community-based and patient-centric clinical trial models where also key to many of our discussions, as well as a continuing theme in presentations and panels. Our team had engaging and progressive discussion with Sponsors, Sites and CROs on how MRN’s clear vision on bringing clinical trials to patients has driven great successes for the trials we support and how our continued growth and development of our community-focused site network, paired with our Site and Patient Support solutions, is continuing to drive this on a global scale.
Overall, the team had a productive, informative and thoroughly enjoyable 3-days – connecting with our colleagues and continuing to work together so that we are better placed to bring healthcare solutions to those that need them most.
Tell me more about MRN’s community-based model, how to improve recruitment and retention, and drive patient-centered solutions in clinical trials: https://themrn.io/solutions/