Earlier this month, PicnicHealth attended SCOPE Summit 2026 in Orlando, where the clinical research industry gathered to discuss the biggest challenges and opportunities shaping the future of clinical research. If there was one overarching theme, it was this: AI has moved from experiment to expectation, but success requires honest timelines, workflow redesign, and genuine stakeholder collaboration, not just technology adoption.
Here are PicnicHealth’s key takeaways from the conference.
Agentic AI emerged as the buzzword of the conference, moving beyond simple automation to systems that can "think-plan-act."
Major trial vendors showcased bold visions for AI-powered automation with the underlying philosophy that as processes become automated, organizations can accelerate study startup timelines through AI-powered protocol extraction, automated site document generation, and dynamic activation sequencing, theoretically adding sites and studies without proportional headcount growth. Sponsors are building similar capabilities—AbbVie showcased "Vision AI," their internal system that writes SQL queries and executes Python for complex operational questions like identifying which sites are running behind. Whether individual companies have genuine capabilities yet or just ambitious marketing remains to be seen. McKinsey estimates show $60-$110B per year in potential pharma value from AI, but only if workflows are redesigned, not just digitized. Success requires process innovation, not just technological add-ons.
One major platform provider offered a refreshingly honest perspective. After launching automated configuration a year ago, they're only now starting to see measurable results. They suggested organizations should plan for 12+ months before seeing real ROI, as teams need time to learn new systems and adapt their workflows. However, opinions were split on the necessity of change management. Some dismissed it as unnecessary overhead while others deemed it critical for adoption.
One memorable line captured a fundamental industry shift: "The protocol needs to become software, not paperwork." By 2030, protocols won't be static PDFs, they'll be machine-readable, machine-validated, continuously simulated, and operationally adaptive. Organizations are building AI-powered tools to extract Schedule of Activities from PDFs within minutes and populate changes downstream when amendments occur.
SCOPE showed that clinical trial site engagement remains one of the industry's biggest bottlenecks, and technology alone won't solve it unless it's personalized, reduces burden, and supports real relationships.
Despite 30% of sites enrolling 80% of patients, the industry treats sites with a "one size fits all" approach. Sites are stressed, receiving repetitive requests, juggling multiple systems, and dealing with siloed sponsor technology.
The solution isn't to throw tech at sites. Multiple sessions emphasized building processes with sites through continuous feedback, Site Technology Advisory Boards, and plugging into existing workflows rather than forcing new system adoption.
Key to reducing site burden is employing alternative data collection methods that don't require site staff time, including decentralized and hybrid approaches as well as patient-mediated data retrieval.
Despite their rocky history, the growing utilization of decentralized and hybrid approaches reflects the industry's recognition that as protocols become more complex and patient populations more specific, meeting patients where they are is becoming necessary, not just convenient—especially for patient recruitment and retention.
In one session, patient advocate and multimedia journalist Lindsay Guentzel highlighted the logistical challenges she faced as a CAR T trial participant and raised concerns about the feasibility of participating through the duration of the long-term follow-up (LTFU) study. PicnicHealth's CMO Dan R. Drozd, MD, MSc responded by outlining how tech-enabled, remote approaches to LTFU could make continued participation feasible, collecting data through patient-mediated record retrieval rather than requiring ongoing site visits and capturing the comprehensive longitudinal data these studies require. You can watch the full discussion here.
Lindsay Guentzel and Dan Drozd speaking in the SCOPE session, “Retention by Design: Reimagining Long-Term Follow-Up to Live Up to Its Name.”
Lindsay's experience reflects a broader industry challenge: how to use technology to reduce patient burden while capturing better data. The industry envisions patient-facing AI, however, this remains largely aspirational. Currently, vendors are focusing AI efforts on backend automation like study configuration while exploring how to make patient interactions more dynamic. Concepts under development include adaptive notifications that adjust to patient preferences for timing and language, and conversational eCOAs that feel less like static questionnaires.
While trial vendors explore these concepts, non-interventional studies are already experiencing what's possible. PicnicHealth’s patient app enables remote completion of study activities including ePROs, with adaptive notifications and reminders that keep patients engaged without adding burden.
In an exploratory session at SCOPE, PicnicHealth CEO Noga Leviner led a roundtable with the industry's leading executives and investors to discuss bringing this same patient-centered approach to interventional trials—designing studies from the start around how patients actually live.
One of the most compelling themes across SCOPE sessions was the industry's shift from static, episodic trial management toward continuous, adaptive execution.
Traditional trials operate in discrete phases with fixed timelines and scheduled reviews. Emerging AI systems aim to replace this with continuous learning and real-time adjustment. Organizations are developing trial design tools that incorporate simulated enrollment scenarios to predict operational complexity upfront. Site activation is moving toward dynamic readiness scoring rather than predetermined timelines. Patient identification is shifting from periodic campaigns to continuous matching. Monitoring is evolving from scheduled reviews to real-time anomaly detection and proactive intervention.
This shift from reactive problem-solving to proactive prevention represents where the industry is heading, enabled by multi-agent AI systems that coordinate complex workflows without constant human oversight.
The industry is moving in multiple decisive directions: toward agentic AI and adaptive trial execution, toward models that bring trials to patients, and toward patient-facing technology that reduces burden while capturing better data. But expectations are becoming more realistic. The timeline to ROI is measured in years not quarters, the approach to change management is still debated, and the need for workflow redesign is more critical than technology vendors always acknowledge.
For PicnicHealth, SCOPE Summit 2026 validated our direction while highlighting where the industry is headed. Our tech-enabled study designs keep patients engaged longitudinally, our patient-mediated data collection minimizes site burden, and our AI-powered approaches bring meaningful change to how research is conducted. Organizations that balance technological innovation with human-first approaches will be best positioned to capture the value these technologies promise.
Interested in learning more about how PicnicHealth is shaping the future of patient-centered non-interventional research? Contact us.
patients onboarded to platform
medical visits processed
facilities provided medical records
healthcare providers
research programs
published posters and manuscripts
partnerships with top 30 pharma
Discover how PicnicHealth data powered medical research in 2021
New methods to improve the identification of lupus nephritis patients in RWD using narrative text extraction were presented at the American College of Rheumatology Convergence virtual conference.
Ultragenyx and PicnicHealth presented preliminary data at the International Network for Fatty Acid Oxidation Research and Management (INFORM) LC-FAOD conference, showcasing the power of linking medical records to patient reported outcomes to better understand the complexities in LC-FAOD care.
We joined Roche-Genentech and other key researchers to introduce a longitudinal, patient-centric Hemophilia A real-world dataset that features abstraction of data points from medical records at scale and supplementation with patient-reported outcomes at the American Society of Hematology annual meeting.
Also at ASH 2021, Roche-Genentech and our research partners presented new findings looking specifically at mild and moderate hemophilia A patients found in PicnicHealth’s RWD cohort to better understand disease burden and healthcare resource utilization in this historically underrepresented patient group.
This year, experts from PicnicHealth joined podcasts, webisodes, virtual summits and much more to speak to the importance of patient-centric approaches when building complete, deep real-world datasets.
CMO Dan Drozd joined The Evidence Base to discuss how to build and measure data completeness
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BBC Storyworks and Roche featured Noga Leviner and her medical journey in “The power of partnerships”
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CEO and Co-founder Noga Leviner joined our partners Komodo Health to discuss patient-centric RWD in “For the Health of It”
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PicnicHealth experts joined Arsenal Advisors in 3 summits to highlight our research partnerships
(from 13 patients with LC-FAOD)
38% Female
15 providers / patient
7.5 years of data / patient
(from 13 patients with LC-FAOD)
patients onboarded across 19 conditions
medical visits processed
healthcare providers
Facilities provided medical records
Change Champions onboarded
Research programs
published posters and manuscripts
partnerships with top 30 pharma
At ASH 2022, Genentech, a member of the Roche group, and our research partners presented their study examining the epidemiology and bleeding phenotype in females with mild Hemophilia A (HA), a minority group that is poorly characterized, compared with a cohort of males with mild HA.
At EHA 2022, Novartis used PicnicHealth’s real-world data to characterize sickle cell disease and burden of illness in the United States.
Genentech leveraged the FlywheelMS cohort to describe COVID-19 vaccination patterns and COVID-19 outcomes among people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) and in subgroups of pwMS, including by disease-modifying therapy (DMT) status.
We partnered with Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease to help identify flares in Lupus Nephritis patients by combining structured and unstructured medical records with lab data.
Cohort Overview. Understand patient healthcare utilization throughout disease history with ability to probe for meaningful mentions and events.
Sickle cell (SC) is the most common inherited blood disorder in the United States. Red blood cells become rigid and shaped like crescent moons, preventing oxygen from getting to parts of the body. This can cause fatigue, severe pain, organ damage or stroke.
Addition of Narrative Text Abstraction to ICD-Based Abstraction Significantly ImprovesIdentification of Lupus Nephritis in Real-World Data
Join our early breast cancer registry to be counted and share your story with research.
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List the names of all the doctors, hospitals, and other facilities your loved one visits regularly, along with those they have visited in the past. Try to go back as far as you can, striving for at least the last 5-10 years, but do your best. Even if you can’t remember them all, having a strong baseline can help you quickly identify gaps in records.
It is important to make sure that you are fully empowered to make decisions on behalf of your loved one with Alzheimer’s. Your relationship status with the patient may not be enough to legally give you access to your loved one's medical information. It is a good idea to talk to an expert about securing special legal status, such as Power of Attorney (POA), a legal document that allows an individual to name someone as their decision maker should they no longer be able to make decisions on their own.
It’s important to have all of your loved one’s medical records together in one spot. This makes it much easier for you and your loved one’s physicians to accurately map the patient’s medical journey and more easily share information between doctors. Fortunately, tools exist to make record management and access simple. A free resource like PicnicHealth helps you collect and organize all of this information. PicnicHealth’s intuitive timeline allows you to pinpoint data across the medical history, eliminating your need for keeping heavy binders filled with paper records or keeping track of multiple software portal logins.
The better you understand your loved one's medical history, the better you can advocate on their behalf. Access and understanding of this information will help you to ask informed questions with physicians. Through regular communication backed by the data in the medical records, you can help your loved one’s care team develop a more successful care plan.
Learn more about PicnicHealth’s commitment to the Alzheimer’s community and the Alzheimer’s Association
Learn MoreWhen you’re juggling appointment times and insurance claims, putting a robust support system together might not strike you as the most urgent task. Investing the time to cultivate relationships with people can turn to in times of need will pay dividends. The next time you need a last-minute ride or just someone to listen, you won’t be on your own.
There are many condition-specific support groups and support groups for caregivers generally in person or online. In addition to the encouragement and empathy they provide, support groups can be a helpful source of tips, resources, and recommendations for navigating caregiving.
The backbone of effective caregiving is organization. Keep medical information, appointment schedules, and medication lists in order. Use a planner or a digital service like PicnicHealth to stay on top of your responsibilities. This attention to detail can prevent future complications and reduce day-to-day stress.
We’ve seen incredible breakthroughs in treatment over the past couple of years, powered by patients and their caregivers participating in research. Stay in the loop about the latest in medical advancements and available resources that could benefit your loved one. Whether it’s a new therapy option or a community service that aids independence, being informed can make a world of difference in the quality of care you provide.
It may seem self-centered to focus on self-care—but when you feel good, you can be a better caregiver. Whether it’s exercise, a mindfulness practice, a soak in the bath, or just time to rest when you need it, carve out those moments in the day when you can unwind, reset, and stay healthy mentally and physically. Think of it as building up your reserves of kindness, patience, and understanding—which can only benefit your loved one. No one can pour from an empty cup.
Easily manage all of your loved one's medical records and contribute to ongoing Alzheimer's research with PicnicHealth.
Learn More(from 13 patients with LC-FAOD)
38% Female
15 providers / patient
7.5 years of data / patient
(from 13 patients with LC-FAOD)
We hope you found this session informative! Sign up for PicnicHealth’s Alzheimer’s research program below.
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