2nd DECENTRALIZED & HYBRID CLINICAL TRIALS WORLD CONGRESS 2026 EUROPE
Redefining Clinical Research Through Decentralization, Technology, and Collaboration
Wednesday 25th - Thursday 26th February 2026
Facilitate Live is very pleased to welcome you to our upcoming 2nd Decentralized & Hybrid Clinical Trials World Congress 2026 Europe.
DCTs continue to transform the landscape of clinical research by enabling studies to be conducted beyond traditional trial sites. This flexible approach allows participants to complete study activities from home, local healthcare facilities, or nearby laboratories reducing or eliminating the need to travel to a central research location. Supported by virtual collaboration among investigators and local medical teams, DCTs leverage digital health technologies such as mobile applications, wearable devices, telemedicine, video consultations, and home health visits. Together, these innovations expand access to diverse participant populations and accelerate the collection of high-quality real-world data in a more cost-effective and patient centric manner.
As decentralized protocols gain global traction, they are redefining patient engagement by offering greater flexibility and choice —particularly valuable for individuals with rare conditions, mobility limitations, or those living in remote areas. The advantages of DCTs are far reaching, including reduced barriers to participation, improved diversity and inclusion in clinical trials, enhanced recruitment and retention, opportunities to study low-prevalence diseases, shorter development timelines, faster access to innovative therapies, and improved data accuracy—all contributing to more efficient and equitable healthcare delivery.
However, DCTs also bring new considerations. Trial design must address the complexities of data collection, management, and interoperability across multiple digital platforms. Variability in technology use can affect data quality, and participants may face challenges using connected devices correctly. Therefore, researchers must ensure that consent, data entry, and withdrawal processes are intuitive and patient friendly. Strong data privacy and cybersecurity measures are essential to safeguard sensitive information. Ensuring participant safety, managing potential technology failures, and maintaining regulatory compliance across jurisdictions remain critical priorities. Additionally, hybrid approaches should continue to accommodate participants who prefer in person visits or require additional support using digital tools.
The 2nd Decentralized and Hybrid Trials World Congress 2026 – Europe will convene leading experts, regulators, technology innovators, and patient representatives to discuss strategies, share best practices, and showcase new technologies driving the next phase of decentralized research. Attendees can look forward to an engaging, collaborative, and forward thinking exchange of ideas designed to advance the global adoption and impact of DCTs.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Decentralized & Hybrid Clinical Trials World Congress 2026 Europe.
Sincerely yours,
Jocelyn Raguindin
Conference Director
Facilitate Live
Gain The Latest Insights On:
- Overcoming Implementation Barriers: Identify and mitigate common hurdles in adopting decentralized research.
- Enhancing Participant Experience: Improve convenience, engagement, and support for patients in DCTs.
- Optimizing Communication and Productivity: Address challenges in communication and workflow efficiency within decentralized trials.
- Navigating Regulatory Landscape: Understand current and emerging regulatory guidelines for DCT compliance and ethics.
- Ensuring Patient Safety and Data Integrity: Assess the impact of decentralized elements on safety and implement measures to reduce errors.
- Achieving Patient Centricity: Balance research efficacy and participant well being in DCTs.
- Driving Growth and Success: Foster the continued success and expansion of decentralized clinical trials.
- Broadening Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Leverage technology to enhance participant diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Key Planning and Execution Milestones: Understand essential milestones for successful DCT planning and execution.
- Industry Collaboration and Leadership Insights: Network with leaders to gain operational insights and ethical guidance on Hybrid & Full DCTs.
Sponsorship & Exhibit Opportunities
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By sponsoring a Facilitate Live Event you will be exposed to the following:
- Access to key decision makers
- Direct access to our delegates and attendees
- Increase worldwide awareness of your organisations latest products and services
- Drive and create new business opportunities
- Generate new contacts and renewed interest for your product of expertise
- Be recognised as a key player and a key supporter of your industry sector
- Demonstrate your organization’s commitment
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- Show brand awareness and brand building
- Brand and product endorsements
- Extensive pre-show and post-show coverage
Solution Showcase
Showcase your latest cutting-edge solutions, new products, technology, innovations and trend. Meet face to face with high level decision makers who are in a receptive mindset and actively seeking solutions and services.
As an exhibitor you will gain access to this exclusive captive audience and have the opportunity to:
- Speak to the attendees and demonstrate your product / services at the solution showcase network to captive and receptive key decision makers
- Gain exposure to one of our Facilitate Live
- Host a networking drinks reception or lunch for attendees
- Meet one-on-one with attendees
- Generate a high number of leads with senior decision makers
- Meet your peers and exhibit alongside your competitors
- Present case studies and in-depth information in a solution provider showcase session
- Present case studies and in-depth information in a solution provider showcase session
- Educate the market with your product and technology solutions
Sponsorship & Exhibit Inquiries
Email: Sponsor@facilitatelive.com Tel No: +44 (0)207 193 3485
Who Should Attend:
This Congress will provide information to pharmaceutical and biotech companies, researchers, physicians, institutional review boards (IRBs), patient organizations and advocates, and regulatory agencies about the implementation of Real-World Evidence.
Network with members of the boards, VP’s, Directors, Heads/Chiefs, and Senior Managers of leading Pharmaceuticals and Biotech Companies, Government, CRO’s and Solution Providers Involved in:
- Decentralized Clinical Trials Operations
- Hybrid Trials
- Clinical Data Management
- Clinical Development & Operations
- Clinical Trial Tools & Technologies
- Clinical Strategy
- Patient Engagement
- Data Management
- Digital Health Process & Solution
- Clinical Research
- Statistical Scientist
- Regulatory Affairs
- Clinical Studies
- Clinical Operations
- Clinical Trial Site
- Trial Designs
- Patient Advocacy
- Consultant
- Clinical Research
- Global Development Solutions
- Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment (eCOA)
- Contract Research Organizations
- Medical Affairs, Global Patient Advocacy & Alliances
- Government Policy and Advocacy
- Digital Patient Experience Lead
- Clinical Insights and Experience
- Head of Strategy, Access Services
- Product Lifecycle
- Patient and Disease Registries
- Scientific Affairs
- Electronic & Medical Records
- Lab & Biomarkers
- Medical and Pharmacy data
- Clinical Supply Chain Management
- Digital Strategy and Engagement
- Patient Recruitment and Retention
- Academia
- And much more…
Co-located with Patient Centricity & Collaboration World Congress 2026 Europe.
Joint Networking & Exhibit Area.
Website: www.patientcentricityworld.com
Amelia Hursey, Strategic Director, parkinsonseurope.org
Regulation, Collaboration, and Patient Engagement
- Key updates on the CTR and its practical implications for DCT operations
- Coordinating approvals via the Clinical Trials Information System (CTIS)
- Managing ethics submissions and multi-country compliance challenges
- Building trust and transparency through harmonized EU oversight
Moderator:
Alexandra Charge, Chief Executive Officer, ISPEP
Panelist:
Khadija Rantell, Senior Statistical Assessor, MHRA
Elizabeth Theogaraj, Regulatory Senior Group Director, Roche
- MHRA patient involvement strategy
- Current landscape and regulatory considerations
Khadija Rantell, Senior Statistical Assessor, MHRA
- Decentralised elements in Clinical trials
- Industry’s perspectives in adopting DCT elements in Clinical Trials
- How European regulators are enabling DCT adoption
- EFPIA Recommendation Paper on Advancing the Use of Decentralised Elements in Clinical Trials
Elizabeth Theogaraj, Regulatory Senior Group Director, Roche
- Reducing barriers to participation for rural and aging populations
- Strategies for multi-language patient interfaces and digital inclusion
- Leveraging telehealth to improve representation in rare disease studies
- Building national digital literacy programs for broader engagement
Prof Gary Middleton, Clinical Network Lead, ECMC
- Advances in validated wearables, eConsent, and ePRO platforms
- Interoperability with hospital EHR systems
- Ensuring MDR/IVDR compliance for medical device-linked technologies
- Real-world deployment case studies from multicountry trials
- Governance, regulatory and clinical frameworks
- Ethical perspectives
- Operational feasibility
Emma Kinloch, CEO, Salivary Gland Cancer UK
- Bullet points to follow
Lewis Millen, Head of Clinical Innovation & Digital Solutions, UCB
- A five letter code: what a diagnosis unlocks
- Building momentum: patients, science, collaboration
- From repurposing to personalised medicine: progress, promise, and barriers in ultra-rare treatment development
- Why speed matters: the cost of waiting
Melanie Dixon, Trustee, Cure DHDDS
- Blending virtual and in-person interactions to enhance experience
- Supporting patients through multilingual, digital, and in-clinic channels
- Ensuring safety, adherence, and satisfaction in hybrid environments
- The path toward a unified, inclusive European patient-centric model
Nadya Isack, Patient and Public Involvement (PPIE) Advocate, Founder, Empower Health Initiative CIC, Person living with Obesity
- This talk will explore how patient insights can guide the design and implementation of decentralized and hybrid clinical trials from early development stages.
- By incorporating the patient perspective, sponsors can adapt endpoints, visit schedules, and participation burden to better reflect real-world needs, improving recruitment, retention, and overall patient satisfaction.
- Practical examples will be shared demonstrating how decentralized approaches — including digital tools, telemonitoring, ePROs, and wearable devices — can be leveraged to enhance efficiency, accessibility, and engagement.
Laura Risueño Ayerbe, Global Patient Affairs, Patient Engagement R&D, Servier
- Fostering pan-European ecosystems for DCT service delivery
- Integrating SMEs and digital health star tups into large-scale trials
- Coordinating cross-border logistics, training, and support networks
- Establishing standardized performance and quality metrics
Moderator:
Dr Sondra Butterworth, Community Psychologist, CEO, RareQoL
Panelist:
Fiona Adshead, Chair, Sustainable Healthcare Coalition
Dimitris Christodoulou, Digital Health Business Lead, Roche
Amelia Hursey, Strategic Director, parkinsonseurope.org
Robert Mitchell-Thain, CEO, PBC Foundation
TECHNOLOGY, OPERATIONS AND FUTURE OUTLOOK
- Turning sustainability goals into measurable action requires, more than intent, it demands collaboration, innovation and integration across every stage of the clinical trials process.
- This presentation and panel discussion brings together leaders from across the clinical research landscape to explore how environmental consideration are being embedded into trial operations in practical, scalable ways.
- The session will explore how to use available tools, such as the clinical trials carbon calculator to assess and reduce trial emissions, discuss how to decarbonise the patient journey from recruitment to retention and build cross-sectoral partnerships to scale sustainable solutions.
Moderator:
Fiona Adshead, Chair, Sustainable Healthcare Coalition
Panellist:
Carly Santer, Strategic Initiatives Project Leader & Sustainability Activator, Bayer UK
Joanna Bell, Project Manager, Sustainable Healthcare Coalition
Hugh Whetherly, Sr Consultant, Product Sustainability Team, ERM
Senior Representative, NovoNordisk
- This talk explores what it really means to undertake inclusive research in practice, drawing on the work of EDIRA
– the Equality, Diversity and Inclusive Research Association. Building on three EDIRA events, it traces a journey
from EDIRA-23 Barriers to Inclusion, to EDIRA-24 Building Trust, to EDIRA-25 Book of Doers who are changing
how research is conceived, designed, and delivered.
The focus for EDIRA-26 - Throughout, the session the underlying theme will be based on a central question: “Whose voice is it anyway?” – challenging delegates to examine whose voices are centred, whose are marginalised, and how lived experience can be recognised as core research expertise rather than an optional add on.
Dr Sondra Butterworth CEO & Founder, RareQoL (Rare Quality of Life) and EDIRA (Equality Diversity and Inclusive Research Association)
Diversity is a key success factor in clinical trials: advancing science and medicine through a variety of lived experiences and living conditions – particularly, people with disabilities. Digital accessibility design standards for patients with disabilities can be critical to clinical trial access, engagement, adherence, and measurement. With the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines(WCAG) design standards for Information & Communication Technologies.
- WHY: disability inclusion in health equity
- WHAT: clinical trial digital ecosystem
- HOW: inclusive design standards
Dr. Stephen Framil, Corporate Global Head of Accessibility, Merck & Co., INC
- Identify structural barriers to recruitment and retention in clinical research.
- Develop strategies to enhance recruitment and retention of individuals.
- Feasible approaches to improve patient retention in clinical trials.
Mohamed Sharaf, EMEA Regional Senior Medical Advisor (Immunology), J & J
- Expanding inclusive strategies to improve DCT participation across Europe.
- Embedding AI and digital tools into modern trial planning.
- Identifying savings from reduced site visits and remote operations.
- Balancing tech investment with patient engagement costs.
- Tracking shifts toward adaptive, risk-based DCT budgeting.
RESERVED
- How electronic healthcare record (EHR) data from UK primary care practice has been used to find and recruit eligible patients for clinical trials, provide follow-up data to ascertain clinical trial outcomes, support safety monitoring and for external control arms.
- Key regulatory considerations around data quality when using EHR data to support clinical trials.
Puja Myles, Director, Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), M H R A
This presentation will examine the patient perspective on decentrialised trials, including:
- Traditional Clinical Trial Design vs Decentralised Trial Design and how this affects the patient’s role as a participant.
- Patients’ needs when participating in clinical trial and how this should shape decentralised trial.
- What to be aware about as a sponsor when designing a decentralised trials?
- How does the future clinical trial look like and how does this affect the different stakeholders in clinical trials?
Rasmus Hjorth, Head of Communication, James Lind Care
- The session focuses on how participants experience trial burden, support, and value, and why these factors directly impact recruitment, retention, and data quality.
- The session concludes with practical guidance on how sponsors can operationalise patient preferences to move from patient-informed to truly patient-ready trial design and delivery.
Alexandra Charge, CEO and Co-Founder, ISPEP
- How can collaboration between regulators, industry, and academia accelerate DCT innovation across
Europe? - What funding and infrastructure models best support large-scale decentralized trial adoption?
- How can shared digital platforms improve data interoperability and transparency?
- What role will EU initiatives like Horizon Europe and IMI play in sustaining long-term DCT growth?
Senior Representative, Health Research Authority
- How are decentralized trials evolving from pilot initiatives to Europe’s new research standard?
- How can decentralized models be effectively integrated with national healthcare systems?
- How can AI and real-world data enhance adaptive and data-driven study design?
- How can transparency and data ownership strengthen patient trust and engagement?
- How will decentralized trials become a core pillar of the European Health Union?
Moderator:
Puja Myles, Director, Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), MHRA
Panellists:
Carole Sian Scrafton, Director & Co-Founder, Flutters and Strutters
Lorna Pender, Medical Director, AOP Health
Senior Representative, Alexion