Interview: IQVIA's Liss Easy - from Disney to the drugs industry
03 Nov 2023
Having been named one of the PharmaVOICE 100 most influential people in life sciences to winning the Partnerships in Clinical Trials Woman of the Year award, it was a great honor for OSP to have the opportunity to speak to her at DPharm 2023. In a nutshell, she works advancing traditional functional service provider (FSP) models by using advanced technologies with the power to support clinical research associates. The aim is to make their jobs easier while delivering value for site staff, patients and sponsors.
You’ve been on quite the journey to get where you are, did you always want to end up in science?
Well, I did do a Bachelor of Science in biotechnology, and I majored in microbiology. However, if you handed me a microscope now, I don't think I would know what to do with it.
At university, I assumed the only job I could get would be to work in a lab. That did not appeal because I love people. And so, the concept of being in a lab didn't excite me. When I finished my degree, I went back to technical college, and I went and did an advertising and marketing certificate. Then I worked at the Disney Channel in Australia in their marketing department. When I got a phone call from someone saying hey, are you interested in working in the industry? I know someone who's trying to hire someone who has a science and marketing background. That was when I got my first job in the industry and have not left since. I just didn't even know this all existed. I feel really lucky that I stumbled into it. It's been quite a journey from there.
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So started in, in Australia and I was working for a smaller company, and they got acquired by Quintiles, then when I was in Quintiles, I was transferred to the UK and then I left there to start my own company, DrugDev. In effect, I left Quintiles to start my own company but now I am working there again because IQVIA bought it [my company] and they merged.
This also reminds me of the advice I give younger people, which is never in this industry always leave on good terms, it is never wise to burn bridges. I came back and there were still tonnes of people who I used to work with who are still here and now. Was it planned? No. Very accidental. But I've always loved science. And I find it fascinating even when I think now about getting that little bit older and start thinking of health and longevity and all the different ways the industry can help people. So now I'm on a personal journey of working out how many people I can help. Because to me, I feel like that's what I need to do now.
What are the challenges in your field, are there any major sticking points?
Yes, there are several. One of the challenges I think what we, as an industry, have is that everyone has gone out and solved different problems and then finding their own solutions, and now we have got people managing those sites going ‘oh my goodness, what is it that am I trying to do’?
I want everyone to know what we, at IQVIA, are like and how we make it easier for sites. When users go in to our platforms, they're going to flag things like ‘Here are all the tasks you need to do today’, and then all they have to do is click on it and it takes them to the vendor or the solution. Using different experiences, we had to make the process easier for people – not just those in science but the ones in patient care and of course, the patients themselves. I do worry that we have overcomplicated all this proliferation of technology for people trying to solve lots of niche problems. That is where I think we as an industry can come together to solve issues.
And this is what I want to solve. I'm very close.
So how does IQVIA technology, particularly improve things for the patients, sites, and sponsors?
I think we are super lucky. Not only does IQVIA have access to an immense amount of data, but if you look at the commercial data, and the real-world data that we have, I think we're probably luckiest in the industry. So, with access to data, with access to subject matter experts like having the big the world's biggest CRO (contract research organization) as part of our company. Then you start bringing in the technology people, the people who know this area inside out to me, that is quite transformative. We can test things with our internal experts before we go to sites. Then a lot of the people I have hired in my team, for the less technical roles are excellent staff. Because they're looking at the product going no, no, this won't work and then fix it.
I think we're really lucky that we can bring all of those things together. Because then I think that you get these 360 views. And I will say I find IQVIA fascinating like some of the most intelligent people in the world are attracted by the combination of these things. And I have never once at IQVIA had someone say no, if I have reached out and said ‘Hey, can I ask you for advice’ or could I ask you a question? So, to me when you start to put this, this willingness to help each other with all of this expertise and data together, it is fascinating, what we can achieve. We do put that into any of the technologies that we build. We use them ourselves as well as asking other people to use them and I think that is also quite key because internal colleagues can be much more brutal in their feedback on something than anyone external and so we do get to test it out before we have to send it out to critics.
You said earlier about all the different things available on the market for this field, that we don’t need, are people still being dazzled by the latest buzzwords and trends?
There are numerous large language models out there. And it was phenomenal to me this immense focus on ‘oh my gosh, it's going to solve all of our problems’.
I think for certain use cases, in clinical trials, it is going to make things a lot faster. I think we're years away from even being allowed to apply it because we are going to have to work out what the regulatory authorities are willing to accept or not. And there's going to be an immense burden placed on people for a while for the proof around showing that what the AI or whatever the technology does, is the same as what a human would have done and that there's no bias in it - and there's none of that.
I am a firm believer that we should be doing it especially because I think it can create productivity so cycle times will be reduced. I think it can help flag risks and quality well. And I think that is important because whole clinical trials should be about quality and flagging risks early for patient safety. I think there is a fabulous place for it. But at the same time, I don't want people applying it in the wrong areas.
How do you handle the external regulations?
There are several regulations we have to abide by. And, in technology, one of the hardest things to do with is not even region-specific now, but country specific. We have regulations over data residency. And there were a lot of emerging technologies occurring where we can anonymize certain data all over the world to bring it together. But I think this is where IQVIA is very lucky to be able to invest in these things in advance. I think that it's very key, to be prepared and thinking ahead. IQVIA is normally quite conservative in its approaches compared to others. This serves us well in a time when it's quite unknown and emerging. We have people who are interacting with the agencies regularly and we're sitting on any sort of boards that we can to try and give our opinions to and hear what's going on. So that is what we do, try to go out and speak to everyone. And we're always talking to our customers and not just one and you start to pick up the different trends and even what they're hearing from the regulatory authorities. Is it the same? Is it different Let's challenge that, let’s go and ask together. But again, it's trying to think ahead, and we will normally take the strictest rules and then work out how to apply and let the technology meet them so that we can then configure it to be less strict versus trying to make it custom for a particular country.
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