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A digital redesign for clinical trials

Case studies

Background

Clinical studies constitute the most critical stage of a drug’s development. They are costly with unpredictable timelines, and their outcomes influence the short and long-term future of pharma companies. Trials attract the interest of regulators, investors, and even patient advocacy groups. As a result, the pressure on pharmaceutical companies to succeed is not only financial but also reputational.

So, when they’re so critical to success, why aren’t clinical trials working as they should?

One healthcare giant recognized the escalating costs of running clinical trials and the clear need to improve its processes. Trials were not dynamic in nature, largely paper-based, and costing the organization millions of pounds. 

The challenge

Much like the rest of the industry, for this firm, typically only ten percent of trials were completed on time, and mistakes due to the use of manual processes were impacting the quality of results. 

The extraordinary penetration of both mobile technology and the Internet of Things meant that the right conditions were in place for digital innovation in clinical ­trials – but the team knew that change wouldn’t be easy. Efforts to date had largely focused on digital replacement of existing standards – screens in place of paper – partly due to regulatory and data privacy issues, and partly due to entrenched processes which were difficult to navigate.

The visionary team needed to challenge the status quo and embark on radical transformation – and needed outside help to guide them through the process.  And that’s where Verhaert Academy came in.

The Verhaert Innovation Academy’s approach

Verhaert Innovation Academy was already a proven partner for this organization – working on several projects for its innovation arm. This team recognized Verhaert Academy’s talented mentors, extensive experience and expert ability to work closely with a variety of personalities within the organization, deeming it a true strategic partner, with a more rigorous and comprehensive approach than its competitors. 

Together, Verhaert Academy and the in-house team zoomed in on local Study Coordinators and Principal Investigators as influential early adopters, who shared their biggest pain points around recruiting patients and scheduling, as well as compliance and accuracy issues. They knew that by addressing these concerns, and influencing stakeholders, they would be able to ensure their solutions would be more warmly embraced.

Going mobile

What made Verhaert Academy’s approach to innovation different to other consultancies was that ideas, assumptions and plans were tested and evaluated all the way through the innovation process – with potential users, customers and stakeholders – so that great ideas could be more rapidly developed and problems and bugs found sooner. This increases the likelihood of success and saves both time and money.

One of the concepts, a mobile app, was quickly identified as having the potential to help clinical trial teams be much more nimble and agile, and this too was put to the test. The team managed to get 58 per cent of their clinical trial patients into the app to jointly test proposed features within two week sprint cycles, and from almost 40 features, they managed to develop eight sticky features that ensured high engagement with the app, ultimately achieving a 92 Net Promoter Score. 

For this team the results of Verhaert Academy’s efforts have been transformational. The use of the mobile platform alone promises to save the organization 140 million pounds annually by saving time and increasing the quality of clinical trial outcomes. 

The team was bold enough to challenge a long-standing and traditional process, but it was Verhaert Innovation Academy’s pragmatic approach, collecting evidence every step of the way, which helped facilitate the change. As the team likes to say: “If you don’t risk anything, you risk everything”.

Want to learn more? Discover our innovation programs or get in touch! 

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Jan Kennedy, Founder


Location: Munich
Speaks: English, German
Specialty: World of Corporate Entrepreneurship
Fact: Created 1 Billion Dollars of Value as Intrapreneur at Intel

Jan Kennedy is an expert for Intrapreneurship program design. As founder of Academy for Corporate Entrepreneurship (AfCE) he overseaw the design and implementations of various Intrapreneurship Programs covering different stages of the Innovation Process for many Fortune 500 organisations. He is also a Director at the Founder Institute, the world’s largest mentoring program for early stage entrepreneurs launching over 1,000 companies per year with a 72% survival rate.

Born in Germany, grown up in the UK and lived and worked in Silicon Valley, Vienna, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Munich, Jan loved working with AfCE’s team of diverse global mentors. He can be found on stage at Intrapreneurship or Innovation Conferences or down in the trenches with corporate startup teams testing and validating critical assumptions. Jan also runs an investment fund focused on startups and crypto currencies.



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Narjeet Soni, Product Development Director


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Narjeet is a a serial entrepreneur with his latest start-up valued at € 1.5 mil within 2 years. He is the founder and CEO of Lean Apps GmbH and acts as Head of Product Development at AfCE where he supports all of our participating teams with the AfCE Prototype Fund and Incubation Development Fund. He was also a Scrum Master at Infosys and Adidas.

Currently, he is focused on helping companies go through their Digital Transformation journey. Narjeet has been working with startups to learn, the ways of working that keep them agile and fast paced and has been implementing those learnings in the enterprise. He has successfully implemented Lean Innovation in Retail, Automotive and Insurance companies and has worked as an Agile Coach, Product Owner, Project Manager and Business Consultant as well as a Software Engineer at various Retail and Telecom customers.



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Dutch born and a Spanish resident since 1999, with a wealth of experience in International Business Development & Sales within various industries and (mainly EMEA) countries. Senior background as entrepreneur, director, and as independent consultant having done projects (70% of those relating to Business Development and Sales) with start-ups till established multinationals.

Networker, public speaker, tech (SaaS, PaaS, Mobile, AR, Smart City) savvy, structured and loves working on solving company pain points.



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Fact: Worked for the company that produced the Netflix series “Narcos”

Maria Isabel has more than 10 years of experience as Financial Analyst and Business Development Manager in a wide variety of industries. She is originally from Colombia, where she was born and raised. She has lived in Paris, Boston and now Germany. Maria Isabel holds an MBA from Babson College, the number one school for Entrepreneurship in the world.

Before moving to Germany in July, 2018, Maria Isabel worked in Bogota as Business Development Manager for the world’s largest infrastructure company, VINCI. In this role she was responsible of searching new concession projects and leading Due Diligence processes to acquire new concessions. Before this she worked for another infrastructure company, as well as a film production company and a marketing agency.

Maria Isabel is passionate about finance and numbers, enjoys working in teams and seeing the results of hard work.



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Location: Antwerp (BE)
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Specialty: Innovation strategy and program design
Fact: Performed live on stage in front of 30.000 people

Stijn is an expert in innovation strategy & management. He consults various R&D and C-suite leaders in designing their innovation program and underlying governance structures. As the Managing Director at AfCE, Stijn can build on his pragmatic experience of heading corporate accelerator programs at Fortune500 clients.

With over 12 years of experience in innovation consulting, he has been leading Verhaert’s business innovation team where organizations and intrapreneurs were supported in developing their breakthrough products and services, from ideation all the way to market launch.

Stijn is a regular speaker at innovation conferences and co-authored the book Building Tomorrow, a pragmatic and systematic approach to tackling innovation challenges in the public sector.



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