Veeva Summit, Europe: Advancing Life Sciences R&D and Quality

Our recent Veeva Summit in Madrid focused on advancing and accelerating life sciences R&D and Quality. One recent positive development is a renewed focus on the site experience. Sites are at the heart of the clinical research ecosystem and innovations such as SiteVault and VeevaID are making it easier and cost-effective for site users to complete their vital work.

Our key updates centered on the growing momentum in clinical and safety and the depth of Veeva Development Cloud, which is becoming the technology foundation for product development and manufacturing. Together with the industry and our partners, we are making big strides forward. Here are the most important Summit highlights for the path ahead.

1. Veeva’s biggest-ever gathering of R&D and Quality leaders in Europe

More than 1200 life sciences professionals representing 40+ countries and 200+ companies joined Veeva’s R&D and Quality Summit in Madrid. The content-rich agenda spanned two days and five Zones: Clinical, Quality and Manufacturing, Regulatory, Safety, and Vault Platform.

2. Simplifying to speed up drug development

During the opening keynote, leading companies explained why a connected platform helps to streamline operations and simplify the user experience.

Head of Clinical Trial Management Services and Solutions Emma Earl described how Bayer is lightening the admin burden for 5,000 active sites across 45 countries, freeing up site leaders to focus on patients. Diane Black, senior vice president for global quality (and chief quality officer) at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, discussed how the company has simplified quality processes since acquiring GW Pharmaceuticals in 2021 by focusing on effective change management and consistent KPI tracking and reporting.

Emma Earl, head of clinical trial management services and solutions at Bayer, on stage at Veeva R&D and Quality Summit, Europe, in June 2024.

3. Power of clean data and connected technology

More than 80 customer speakers presented best practices on advancing data, technology, and industry partnerships to make faster decisions. Expert speakers included:

• Thomas Senderovitz, senior vice president at Novo Nordisk, explained the emerging role of artificial intelligence across the clinical trial lifecycle at a time of growing scientific complexity and data. He noted that the most exciting opportunities for scalability and automation require a robust clean data foundation.
• Maite Durrenbach, Sanofi’s chief quality officer, discussed the company’s goal of building a fully connected manufacturing and supply network to power growth in immunology. Quality has a critical role in ensuring a successful transition through reliable supply, competitive manufacturing, and successful launches.
• Marco Stöhr, head of global regulatory operations and RA digital innovation, shared how Boehringer Ingelheim is embracing data-centric regulatory transformation as part of the One Medicine Platform. Preparing people for change is an important focus area, in addition to adopting strategies for processes and technology.
• Rinat Lifshitz Shovali, head of systems and innovation, spoke about how Teva Pharmaceuticals is reducing risk while enabling safety innovation by rethinking its pharmacovigilance (PV) systems landscape. By adhering to its guiding principles of simplicity and standardization, the company is consolidating three safety databases into one source of truth for global and local teams.
• Christian Wittrup (associate director of global IT services and procurement at Ascendis Pharma) and Sai Jasti (head of data science and AI at Bayer) described their journeys, learnings, and achievements with the Vault platform.

4. Veeva Heroes: Recognizing extraordinary people advancing life sciences

Every year, Veeva honors customers who have had a significant impact in their organizations and on the whole industry. Each of these Veeva Heroes goes the extra mile to navigate complex change and improve processes so that patients benefit. We celebrated and thanked Veeva Heroes from Alfasigma, GSK, LEO Pharma, Nordic Pharma, Sanofi, and Sobi.

5. Beating the odds in rare disease

“The only thing that was impossible was to do nothing”. These are the words of Terry Pirovolakis, CEO of Elpida Therapeutics and father to Michael who was diagnosed as an infant with ultra-rare genetic disease SPG50. Despite being told there was no cure, Terry moved mountains over four years to find a breakthrough gene therapy that Michael and other affected children all over the world could benefit from.

It was humbling to hear his deeply personal battle during this year’s closing keynote, and from patient advocate Samuela Bellini, whose nonprofit Un Raggio Di Sole Per Marty is seeking to make the new treatment available to children in Italy. Their message to our industry? Work harder and with greater urgency.

On stage with Terry Pirovolakis, CEO of Elpida Therapeutics, and Samuela Bellini, Vice President of Un Raggio di Sole Per Marty.

Watch keynotes on-demand from Veeva R&D and Quality Summit, Europe.