AstraZeneca's Journey Towards Unified Clinical Operations

By Jim Reilly, VP, Vault Clinical, Veeva Systems, Inc.

Clinical operations leaders filled the room at Veeva R&D Summit Europe to hear Debbie Brook from AstraZeneca describe the organization’s clinical transformation and their vision for 2021. She detailed their move to a unified suite, success criteria, and change management considerations for successful global adoption.

The Challenges

When Debbie was assigned to this initiative, AstraZeneca was using legacy CTMS technology that was not adaptive to today’s clinical trials and was difficult to integrate with other clinical systems. She found that the 45 existing integrations and business processes were based on the limitations of the CTMS application, rather than on the desired optimal processes for the business. As a result, AstraZeneca’s clinical operations teams were using spreadsheets and emails for tracking and reporting, increasing inefficiencies, duplicating data entry, and providing limited visibility across clinical trials.