The 5th edition of the summit was held in Paris on 16 November 2022 and counted more than 78 sessions on innovation in healthcare.
Our scientific officer Dr Raphaelle Lesage has been invited to contribute to the discussion on “Building the future on clinical trials with AI: from virtual to synthetic cohorts” along with Raphael Toueg from Janssen and Francois-Henry Boissel from Nova Discovery.
The discussion was moderated by Paul De Balincourt from Artefact and revolved around the opportunities and benefits of developing synthetic and virtual cohorts for clinical trials, as well as the regulatory challenges and technical aspects that need to be taken into account for the adoption of such technologies.
During the session, all speakers agreed on the many opportunities synthetic and virtual cohorts could bring, from data augmentation for clinical trials, to the replacement, reduction or refinement of animal use, and the reduction of costs related to trials. Other benefits include the increased safety of patients and the possibility to tackle populations that are usually underrepresented or particularly difficult to recruit.
On the other hand, there are some challenges regarding the regulatory and technical aspects.
“We don’t have a clear framework for virtual cohorts in particular, we only have guidelines for modelling and simulation technologies used for medical product development - said Dr Raphaelle Lesage - and frameworks need to be harmonised on the international scene.”
The session closed with final remarks on what is the direction for the future: “Frameworks combining mechanistic models and AI insights will find their way into clinical practice and personalized medicine - Dr Lesage concluded - “we cannot forget the importance of building a community consensus on good simulation practices to accelerate the adoption of these technologies.”
Watch the full session here
