Planning and preparation: how to ensure your clinical trial succeeds in 2025

How can you give your clinical trial the best possible chance of success in 2025? After more than three decades of working in close partnership with CROs and sponsors in the UK, Europe, North America and beyond, we’ve seen hundreds of trials succeed without hitch – and countless others navigating unexpected challenges along the way. This year, as the research landscape continues to evolve, we recommend embedding two key elements into your next trial.

Introduce suppliers and partners at protocol design stage 

Equipment solutions and site set-ups are often tackled relatively late in the process, when SIV dates are starting to loom and recruitment is coming into sharp focus. But this causes two strategic risks for sponsors and CROs.

First, today’s clinical trials are becoming increasingly sophisticated. More requirements are being woven into protocols. More equipment needs to be identified, sourced, checked, calibrated, and dispatched. Every moving piece adds another layer of complexity. And if tackling equipment solutions is left too late, securing the best possible devices for your trial’s objectives may not be possible. In worst-case scenarios, even SIV dates could be jeopardised.

Ensuring you have your equipment identified and sourced early in your process helps to eliminate potential stress further down the line. Because every missed SIV date puts the first patient visit in jeopardy. Every cancelled patient visit puts the retention of that patient in jeopardy. And every lost patient costs the typical clinical trial about US$ 6,533 (MD Group). So, each time you delay addressing your equipment supply and logistics, you risk a snowball effect that could have huge ramifications for the success or overall cost of your trial.

The second risk is that of failing to understand how well-identified equipment can better align with your trial objectives and maximise the data you gather. If equipment suppliers are only brought into the conversation as the SIV date approaches, protocols have already been designed. That leaves no room for your equipment supplier to provide arguably their most valuable asset – decades of expertise and insight into how to best use equipment to achieve your aims. A good equipment supplier should be confident at adding value and support in the study design stage, just as N-SIDE did during a collaboration with Merck that resulted in €18 million in cost savings and a 10-month acceleration in recruitment. It's far wiser to make use of that knowledge than ignore it.

Embrace POCT for efficiency and trial success

At the earliest possible opportunity, we always recommend someone in your trial planning team advocates for point-of-care testing. With the rise of decentralised clinical trials (DCTs), hybrid set-ups, and the increasing demands for trials to generate more data faster and more efficiently than ever, POCT can provide huge advantages for CROs and sponsors.

POCT has been proven to deliver cost savings, time savings, and reductions in pre-screen failure rates. It also enables broader access to a more diverse patient population. But identifying opportunities to use POCT, rather than relying on processes that are often done out of industry habit, requires genuine expertise and knowledge of the market possibilities. Doing this early enables POCT to be written into your protocol, to the benefit of your practitioners, participants, and the wider research community.

Make 2025 the year of achievement

Woodley Trial Solutions places efficiency and innovation at the heart of its service, providing knowledge and supply solutions alongside our ability to alleviate logistical and regulatory pressures.

Our team is adept at supporting you at any stage of your clinical trial. If you’re keen to understand how we can help you secure cost savings, time savings, and trial success, contact us today to start planning for your 2025 clinical trial. It’s never too early!