Designing Clinical Trials Balancing Simplicity with Complexity

When designing clinical trials, CMOs aim to answer meaningful questions for a plethora of stakeholders. Inherently, this results in study protocols with more measures, biomarkers and data collection that both provides a platform for strategic decision-making but also impacts patient burden, operational foot-print, timelines and cost. In this panel discussion from the 2025 Chief Medical Officer Summit 360°, CMOs address how to develop a balanced strategy that takes into account the ambition to answer these questions with the realities of complicated clinical trials. More specifically: Prioritizing data collection strategy to answer key scientific questions while avoiding overcomplication Designing trials around real patients rather than ideal patients Better understanding the objectives of the study and asking the questions that achieve those objectives Better partnering with patients and PIs To learn more about the Chief Medical Officer Summit 360°, please visit CMO360.org.