Meeting the COVID-19 challenge head on.

In tandem with the effort to ensure the continuation of important non-COVID-related clinical trials, there was an equally strong effort to join the world in the fight against SARS-CoV-2. From the recruitment of diverse patient pools for COVID vaccine trials to in-house variant testing, we had to pivot to meet customer and global needs.

Conducting COVID Trials:

PPD began its innovation and virtualization journey well before the pandemic by leveraging insights from previous pandemics such as Ebola, SARS and H1N1. By combining our extensive therapeutic and laboratory expertise with our vast global resources, we were able to help advance COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic clinical studies within very short timelines. Read more about our approach to vaccine trials.

Delivering Diversity:

As PPD and our partners raced to enroll patients in COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic studies, it was clear there was an underrepresentation of affected populations - people of color who were disproportionately bearing the brunt of the pandemic. This spurred a new urgency for improved diversity recruitment efforts that helped to inform trial strategy and ensure proper patient representation. Read more on how we used big data to achieve patient diversity goals for our customers' clinical trials.

Spotting the Shortcomings:

For a long time, clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines excluded pregnant and lactating women. It became critical to study this previously excluded population of women in order to facilitate policy decisions, inform clinical practice and assist women, their partners, and healthcare providers in making informed decisions about the risks and benefits of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy. Read more.

Genomic Groundwork: