How Modern Software Architecture Is Revolutionizing IRT Solutions

By Evan Hahn, senior vice president, IRT Solutions, YPrime

As a technology, existing Interactive Response Technologies (IRTs) built around the approaches that spawned modular interactive web response (IWR) have likely reached their ceiling in terms of new innovation. They are also likely to become increasingly risky for the organizations that retain them – both in terms of as trials becoming more complex and undergo more mid-study changes than ever before, relying on architectures that take significant time and testing to adapt will create untenable inefficiencies in a landscape driven by speed-to-market.

Microservices models have seen widespread adoption across the broader tech industry, as they are simply more suited to the demands of modern software. Faster development, seamless and secure integrations, accessible data, and scalability are all advantages from this architecture. For the clinical trial industry to reap similar benefits, sponsors and technology suppliers must agree to undertake a paradigmatic shift toward a new architecture, one that can support the innovations likely to transpire in the coming years. Pioneering more standardized, configurable IRT systems with the flexibility necessary to turn functionality on and off, add new functionality without creating undue risk, and make data more secure and accessible will be key to ensuring the IRTs are positioned to adapt alongside emerging technologies and evolving trial protocols.