Nanci Eannucci Wene, a clinical dietitian turned clinical research leader with more than 20 years of healthcare experience, shares how Teva is transforming clinical research through innovation, AI and real-time collaboration with trial sites to better support studies and patients.

Our role is to make clinical studies practical and viable for sites and the patients who enroll in them. Clinical trial sites are working with multiple pharmaceutical companies and many times across various therapeutic areas. They have tremendous demands on their time and resources. So, to be a sponsor of choice, we need to understand what makes a site want to work with us. We do a lot of listening and bring the voice of the site back to Teva so that solutions, strategies and support can be implemented in real time to address challenges at the site and patient level throughout the life of the study. That is a very different way of thinking about clinical research. Instead of waiting until the end of a study to understand what worked and what didn’t, we can gather insights and feedback that enables us to make beneficial changes and implement value-added support all along the way. Which, ultimately, impacts the overall success of the trial.

We have an entire task force looking at how we can use AI to make protocol design faster and more efficient. Protocol design is the creation of a step-by-step master plan that dictates how a clinical trial for a new product will be safely and accurately conducted. We’re looking at how we can optimize the process throughout the study lifecycle, researching specialized vendors and innovative solutions. For me, the exciting thing is that innovation isn’t just one project or one technology. Innovation is present from protocol design straight through to supplying the final product. It’s about asking ourselves where we can do things differently.

Innovation doesn’t happen in a silo. Sometimes there are hierarchies within organizations that prevent speed and agility, hindering the ability to make an impact. At Teva, those walls are broken down. That was one of the things I noticed when I first joined the company. There is a real opportunity to work across functions and bring people together who have different expertise. It’s not about staying in your lane. It’s about bringing in the right expertise to get something done. You need different perspectives, different experiences and different areas of expertise coming together.

When we say we want to be innovative, we mean it. You must give people the ability to take an idea and actually do something with it. If every idea requires layers and layers of approval, you lose speed, and sometimes you lose the idea altogether. What I’ve experienced at Teva is the enthusiasm to hear new ideas backed up by a solid business plan. If it makes sense, then often the opportunity to move forward is granted. With opportunity comes accountability. You have to deliver. You have to show that the idea is making an impact. We’re not just innovating for the sake of saying we’re innovative. We’re looking at whether something is actually going to improve the way we work, improve the clinical trial experience and ultimately help patients.

At the end of the day, everything comes back to the patient. We can talk about AI, technology, clinical trial processes and innovation, but the reason we are doing all of this is to help bring potential new treatments to patients who need them. The site is a critical part of that because that is where the patient journey in a clinical trial truly begins. If we optimize the experience for patients and sites, if we ensure all support initiatives are fit for purpose and translate to benefit verses burden, and if we can understand how to retain patients once they are enrolled by identifying needs, then we have a greater potential for success. That’s why I think it’s so important that we’re listening throughout the process rather than simply identifying lessons learned at the end.

The opportunity is to keep challenging ourselves to find a better way. Whether that is using AI to improve protocol design, listening to sites in real time, developing new approaches to patient recruitment or simply breaking down the barriers that can slow an idea down, it all contributes to the same goal.

For me, innovation is about making an impact. And when you can see that impact translates to optimizing the way we conduct clinical research and, ultimately, getting medicines in the hands of patients in need, that is incredibly rewarding.

NPS-ALL-NP-01866 October 2026