Since the Trump Administration reclaimed the White House a little over a year ago, several changes with global consequences have been enacted, including President Trump’s imposition of tariffs and the US’s withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO), as well as shifts in the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which pharma companies and biotechs are continuing to navigate.
Industry professionals will gather at the Outsourcing in Clinical Trials (OCT) East Coast 2026 conference on 13 and 14 May in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to discuss the broad-ranging difficulties currently being faced by the industry.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
What’s on the agenda?
The OCT East Coast conference is divided into two streams: Stream A – Clinical Operations and Outsourcing and Stream B – Clinical Technology and Innovation.
On day one, sessions will include a keynote panel including Revati Tatake, global head of Pharma Research, Analysis and Competitive Intelligence for GlobalData Healthcare and Meghan Dierks, executive director of Advanced Analytics and Technology Assessment, Harvard Medical School on strengthening trial resilience by navigating FDA volatility and global uncertainty.
The first day will also feature a presentation by Mindy Hurd, vice president and general partner of ICON, on the next evolution of outsourcing models, touching on a move to more integrated partnership models, mitigating operational unpredictability, and how CROs fall into this.
In the afternoon, there will be a large panel discussion about rebuilding trust across sponsors, CROs and sites by addressing the human factors behind operational success.
There will also be sessions on artificial intelligence (AI), accelerating start-up development, site relationships, and wearables.
On the second day, there will be a session headed by patient advocate Mel Mann about navigating the process between trials and commercialisation to better understand patient expectations.
Panels will also feature discussions on ownership and risk sharing between sponsors and vendors, AI and automation, and the implementation of ICH E6(R3).
John Gregg, chairman and CEO at BalinBac Therapeutics, will also host a session about rebuilding patient recruitment in the US amid trust, access, and site constraints.
The event will close following roundtable problem-solving discussions focused on topics including outsourcing and vendor models that fit today’s trials, strengthening sponsor–site relationships in 2026, making digital tools work for real teams, and fixing the hidden bottlenecks throughout a study’s startup phase.
A detailed agenda for 17th Annual Outsourcing in Clinical Trials East Coast 2026 conference can be accessed here. The conference is hosted by Arena International Events Group, a B2B events company owned by GlobalData, the parent company of Clinical Trials Arena and Pharmaceutical Technology.
Interested in attending or sponsoring OCT East Coast? Complete the form below and the Arena team will be in touch.
hbspt.forms.create({
portalId: "26632421",
formId: "74f5fcf2-648e-4cac-8525-bba0b977b895",
region: "eu1"
});
