Digital Twins is Driving Transformation in Clinical Trials and Beyond

Published Date

February 13, 2024

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8 minutes

Written By

ACL Digital

The digital twin is an innovative approach that revolutionizes clinical trials by offering the closest simulation to real life. It assists healthcare companies in gaining a better understanding of how their products perform under real-life conditions.

At the core of Industry 4.0 lies technological advancements in AI, robotics, IoT, genetic engineering, and beyond. Among these innovations, digital twins stand out as technology revolutionizing various industries. A digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical asset that allows running simulations to test its performance. Its numerous benefits for businesses are improved productivity, reduced downtime, and enhanced decision-making capabilities.

Clinical trials provide pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with invaluable insights. Serving as a fundamental aspect of drug development, the outcomes of these trials frequently influence a company’s future decisions. Nevertheless, clinical trials frequently face criticism for their high costs, prolonged duration, and the burdens they impose on patients. Many clinical trials fail due to insufficient enrollment of suitable patients.

Digital twins are increasingly utilized in clinical trials to streamline their execution. There are numerous advantages to employing digital twins, such as enhanced trial design, heightened patient recruitment and retention, and more efficient data collection and analysis. Although digital twins are being implemented on a smaller scale across various industries, the healthcare and life sciences sectors are still subject to this trend.

Understanding Digital Twins

A digital twin is a digital representation of a physical object or system, serving multiple purposes, including monitoring and managing its performance. Coined by Dr. Michael Grieves of the University of Michigan in 2002, the concept has gained widespread recognition.

Digital twins are constructed by integrating data from sensors, various sources, and computer models to generate a virtual entity model. This virtual model facilitates simulations of different scenarios, testing new ideas or designs, predictions, and overall enhancement of understanding regarding the represented entity.

The application of digital twins transcends any specific industry or domain, as they have been adopted in various fields such as manufacturing, healthcare, transportation, energy, and more.

How Digital Twins Can Revolutionize Clinical Trials

Digital twins hold significant potential for transforming clinical trials, offering a range of benefits such as cost reduction, increased efficiency, and enhanced patient safety.

Cost Reduction

Utilizing digital twins can substantially reduce the expenses associated with clinical trials. By employing digital patient models instead of physical ones, sponsors can bypass the costs of recruiting and compensating trial participants. Moreover, sponsors can avoid paper records and manual data entry by electronically gathering data from digital twins.

Increased Efficiency

Digital twins can boost the efficiency of clinical trials. Sponsors can test numerous trial scenarios on a computer model before conducting physical trials, thus avoiding wasted time and resources on trials with probable failure outcomes. Furthermore, digital twins shorten clinical trial duration by automating data collection and analysis.

Improved Patient Safety

Another notable advantage of digital twins is their potential to enhance patient safety. By subjecting new treatments to testing on computer models before administering them to patients, sponsors can mitigate the risk of severe side effects or adverse events.

Additionally, by monitoring digital twins throughout a trial, sponsors can promptly detect any safety concerns and take necessary measures to address them.

Addressing the Challenges of Clinical Trials

Companies invest significant resources – money, time, and expertise – into planning and conducting clinical trials. However, despite these efforts, clinical trials often face hurdles to success.

Various factors contribute to the failure of otherwise promising clinical trials. These may include issues related to ensuring patient safety, insufficient funding, or an inability to demonstrate the efficacy of the tested drug.

One of the most significant barriers to success is identifying and enrolling a sufficient number of suitable patients and maintaining their participation throughout the trial. Difficulty in patient enrollment can lead to costly delays or even trial termination. Approximately 80% of clinical trials fail to meet initial enrollment targets, and 55% are terminated due to failure to achieve complete enrollment.

Several common reasons underlie these enrollment challenges:

Slow and labor-intensive candidate screening

Traditional methods of screening clinical trial candidates, such as analyzing electronic health records, are time-consuming and often act as bottlenecks for researchers.

Meeting inclusion/exclusion criteria

It can be challenging to find patients who meet all the criteria set by researchers, such as specific medication requirements or health conditions.

Time constraints

The longer a study lasts, the more difficult it becomes to track patients who may experience life changes or lose interest. Additionally, maintaining the engagement of clinical sites can be challenging, with delays arising from FDA requests or difficulties in securing site participation.

Lack of awareness

Some clinical trials need more awareness among the public to attract participants. In one survey, 17% of respondents were unfamiliar with clinical trials, and only 13% had participated in one. Insufficient communication to address patient concerns or misconceptions further compounds this issue.

Digital twins offer a promising solution to these challenges. Researchers can utilize virtual replicas of patients to simulate how the human body, or specific systems within it, may respond to experimental treatments. By crafting and refining scenarios, researchers can generate more precise and reliable results, ultimately aiding in the success of clinical trials.

Exploring Use Cases of Digital Twins in Clinical Trials

Let’s delve into some practical applications of digital twins in clinical trials to gain a deeper understanding of their significance.

Use Case 1 - Predicting Personal Responses

Imagine having a crystal ball for medical treatments – digital twins offer just that. Before administering a new drug, doctors can simulate its effects on the patient's digital twin. This enables them to anticipate potential bodily reactions, providing valuable insights grounded in science.

Use Case 2 - Reducing Reliance on Animal and Human Trials

For animal advocates and those concerned with ethical considerations, digital twins offer a promising alternative. By employing virtual replicas, the necessity for testing on animals or humans diminishes significantly. This approach yields answers without ethical quandaries, benefiting medical progress and moral concerns.

Use Case 3 - Accelerating Drug Development

In the field of medicine, timeliness is crucial. Expedited clinical trials mean faster access to new treatments for those in need. Digital twins streamline this process by optimizing efficiency, reducing time and resource expenditures.

Use Case 4 - Precision and Personalization

Personalized medicine is not merely a trendy concept; it represents the future of healthcare. Digital twins enable treatments tailored to each patient's unique characteristics and requirements. It's akin to receiving a bespoke garment for your health needs.

In essence, digital twins emerge as the superheroes of modern medicine. They enhance treatment safety, expedite development timelines, and facilitate tailored approaches, heralding a new era of medical advancement.

Takeaway

The significance of digital twins in medicine is undeniable; it represents a fundamental shift in healthcare practices rather than a passing trend.

Digital twins offer potential benefits for streamlining the execution of clinical trials, aiding in trial design, patient recruitment and retention, and data collection and analysis. However, integrating digital twins into clinical trials necessitates careful consideration of regulatory concerns, notably data privacy and security.

While digital twins hold promises for expediting the design and implementation of clinical trials, they can also address persistent industry challenges. Nevertheless, monitoring is crucial as concerns accompany data security and privacy issues. Additionally, the potential role of digital twins as diagnostic tools presents challenges for study within controlled clinical trial environments.

Partnering with specialized companies is paramount for those considering implementing digital twin technology. Collaborating with such firms ensures the timely development and management of functional digital twins while mitigating costs.

ACL Digital stands out as a reliable partner in this domain. With a team of seasoned experts, they offer comprehensive support in building, implementing, and managing digital twins. You can reach out to the team to explore your digital twin concept and discover how they can assist you in realizing your vision.

For further information on how we can assist you with your digital healthcare transformation, clinical trial data visualization or digital solutions and services, don't hesitate to contact us via email at business@acldigital.com.