Fully Decentralized Trials: Aspirational Goal Or Reality?

The COVID pandemic accelerated the adoption of decentralized trials at a rate never before experienced throughout the Biopharma industry. Sponsors and CROs who once expressed concerns about possibly losing control in a remote environment welcomed remote trial approaches, especially the use of mobile research nurses to visit patients at home, as a means to save trials that would have otherwise been delayed or canceled entirely as a result of the concerns and restrictions of the pandemic.

Many companies rushed to adapt existing protocols to fit a remote environment and successfully moved forward with hybrid trials that involved physical sites as well as mobile research nurses. Since the peak of the pandemic, the popularity of hybrid approaches has largely remained. However, fully decentralized trials are still somewhat rare. Why?