The Future of Drug Trials Is Better Data and Continuous Monitoring

Digital technologies are becoming ubiquitous, effective, and cost efficient, but are underutilized in medicine. These technologies -- like wearable health monitors, sensors, and even ingestible devices that can measure everything from how many steps you take, to blood pressure, and how a drug interacts with your body once ingested -- have the potential to disrupt every aspect of health care, including high-stakes, high-cost drug development. Specifically, these devices can revolutionize the antiquated process of developing new drug therapies and can vastly improve how we collect, measure, and assess health data so that we can offer new treatments to patients without wasting valuable time and limited resources. Clinical trials are designed to evaluate whether a new drug is safe and effective while protecting volunteer patients participating in the trials from risk. All good intentions, but some of today's research processes date back to 1946. New and proven digital technologies can make drug development smarter, better, and faster.