Obesity clinical development faces a growing paradox: demand for trial participation has never been higher, yet obesity studies continue to experience some of the highest attrition rates in clinical research. As therapies become increasingly differentiated, retention is no longer just an operational challenge. It is critical to demonstrating treatment value and study success.
In this webinar, Michala Worrell and Simon Bruce, MD explore both sides of the equation: the practical strategies that help sponsors protect retention at speed, and the scientific and competitive forces reshaping obesity development, from protocol complexity and treatment-naïve participant competition to active comparator designs and emerging therapies.
Attendees will leave with actionable approaches for accelerating study delivery whilst maintaining participant engagement, data quality and retention in an increasingly competitive obesity research environment.
Speakers
Simon Bruce, MD
Simon Bruce, MD is vice president, internal medicine at ICON plc where he leads drug development strategy across metabolic and cardiometabolic programs. Based in San Diego, he has focused much of his recent work on obesity and GLP-1 therapeutics, including trial design challenges in the shift from weight-centric endpoints to comorbidity and functional outcomes.
Michala Worrell
Michala Worrell is Executive Director, Project Management at ICON and a leader within ICON’s Centre for Obesity. She has more than 20 years of clinical research experience and specialises in obesity trial strategy, patient recruitment and retention, site engagement, and operational delivery of global obesity development programmes.