Many people in clinical research have been attending the DPHARM conference in Boston over the last few days.

Looking on the website, it explains the origins of the conference – the first one being held twelve years ago in 2011 – and how it was designed to bring together people who wanted to disrupt the clinical trials industry in order to transform it for the better.

I’ve often wondered whether disruption and innovation for their own sake are necessarily always good things. In many fields, the natural evolution of practices and methodologies will generally bring about improvements without wide scale operational changes.

Within the world of clinical trials, however, I agree with the principles behind DPHARM, that revolution, not evolution, is probably the best way to achieve the goals of improved practices and better outcomes.

Disrupting the status quo might not always be a good idea, but for our industry I’d suggest it’s definitely a path worth pursuing.