The Missing Link: Why Study Design Makes or Breaks a Clinical Trial

In this episode of LifeSci Talks, Mark Wade, Global Practice Leader at TransPerfect Life Sciences, sits down with Farrell Healion, Founder and Principal Consultant at OptiTrial, to explore why study design is so often the overlooked "missing link" in clinical development and where real flexibility and patient centricity live. Together, they unpack the gap between what a protocol asks for and how it gets delivered, the trouble with arbitrary First Patient In (FPI) dates and the timeline pressure that forces teams to cut corners, and the creep of unnecessary measures and patient burden that undermines data quality. They also dig into smarter, more patient-centric approaches, from item libraries and computer adaptive testing to disease-specific instrument selection, and the hidden risks of the "copy-and-paste" protocol.