As the Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI) celebrates its 16th annual Clinical Ops Executives (SCOPE) Summit in Orlando, Florida, USA, next month, two awards, one for site innovation and another for patient engagement, have released their shortlisted finalists who will battle it out for the winner and runner-up positions.
Recognizing Site Innovation in Clinical Trials
For the Site Innovation Award, the judges screen companies developing scalable ways to improve patient enrolment and lighten the burden of the site when carrying out clinical trials, whether they be high or low tech.
“There are so many problems that need to be solved, but they’re not all the same size and scope,” said award co-chair Amanda Wright, co-founder and COO of the clinical research organization (CRO) Javara, in Clinical Research News. “Trying to approach this in a way where we can have the greatest impact and influence across the enterprise has been our strategy.”
This year, the finalists will include approaches based on artificial intelligence from Triad Clinical Trials and Cedar Health Research, in addition to a matchmaking app by Velocity Clinical Research and more.
Honoring Advancements in Patient Engagement
The second of the awards, the Patient Engagement Award, promotes initiatives to improve many facets of clinical trials including patient access, awareness and participation in addition to compliance and diversity, equity and inclusion. All applicants are challenged to demonstrate their solution’s ability to be novel and benefit the clinical trial ecosystem as a whole.
The finalists this year will feature Grove AI, which seeks to personalize patient recruitment and engagement, a team-up between AstraZeneca and Walgreens to recruit more diverse patient populations, and more.
For both awards, the finalists will have the chance to pitch their ideas in a 2-minute presentation to the panel of judges in person at SCOPE, with the winner announced on Tuesday February 4.
The winner of last year’s Site Innovation Award was the US software developer Medidata, which developed a tool to speed up the process of data entry in clinical trials by up to 93%. Meanwhile, last year’s Patient Engagement Award winner was the Oliver Patch Project, designed to motivate child cancer patients to persevere in clinical trials with the use of colorful patches that they can sew into cloths or tote bags.
Another event award, the 2025 Best of Show Awards, will see exhibitors presenting their products at the event and the winner chosen by attendee votes, with last year’s winners including ConcertAI, Medidata and Veeva System.
