Free Daily Podcast Summary
Innovating Clinical Trials: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Liam Eves and Ted Trafford
Welcome to Innovating Clinical Trials, the podcast designed for clinical research professionals eager to deepen their understanding of clinical trials through concise, insightful segments. Join your hosts, Liam Eves and Ted Trafford, as they uncover the core issues in clinical research, reflect on the industry, and challenge conventional wisdom.Ted Trafford - https://probitymedical.com/With 30 years of experience in clinical research, Ted serves as the Director of Business Development, driving business growth and leading Feasibility and Site Relationship teams at Probity Medical Research, a clinical trial site administrative support company with a consortium of 75+ sites across four countries. As a writer and speaker, Ted contributes to thought leadership and strategic initiatives in the clinical trials industry, leveraging his extensive experience and creative approach to drive meaningful discussion and progress for Sponsors, CROs, Sites and Technology Vendors.Liam Eves - https://www.theendpointpodcast.com/Liam's held executive roles in SMOs and CROs, and led all major functions of trial delivery. His journey into the field began unexpectedly after an injury ended his career as a professional footballer. Over the years Liam has optimized trial delivery methods / systems for effective enrollment and trial delivery. Currently, he focuses on building and advising companies in the clinical trial space.Opinions expressed are those of the participants and not their employers.
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- Aug 14, 202613 min
Ep 2.30: Scott Burgher on Where AI Actually Helps Patient Recruitment (Part 3/3)
In the final part of this three-part conversation, Liam and Ted close things out with Scott Burgher, Director of Patient Operations at Quest Diagnostics, looking ahead at where AI genuinely moves the needle in recruitment, and where the industry still gets feasibility wrong. Scott breaks AI's near-term impact into two practical buckets. The first is administrative: compressing study startup from six to twelve months down to weeks by automating document collection, regulatory submissions, IRB...
- Aug 13, 202616 min
Ep 2.29: "That's Not a Performance Problem, It's a Structural One" Scott Burgher on Why Sites Stop Recruiting (Part 2/3)
In Part 2 of this three-part conversation, Liam and Ted continue with Scott Burgher, Director of Patient Operations at Quest Diagnostics, going deeper into why recruitment keeps falling short. Liam reframes the problem from the ground up: the industry treats recruitment as a marketing function obsessed with filling the top of the funnel, when the real work is moving patients all the way through it. Scott connects this to his experience running end-to-end mock trials years ago, testing the fu...
- Aug 12, 202619 min
Ep 2.28 Scott Burgher on Why 86% of Trials Miss Their Enrollment Deadline (Part 1/3)
In Part 1 of this three-part conversation, Liam and Ted sit down with Scott Burgher, Director of Patient Operations at Quest Diagnostics, who brings over 20 years of patient recruitment experience spanning healthcare marketing, clinical trial agencies, large consulting, and big tech, to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of patient recruitment. In this episode, Scott breaks down why recruitment keeps missing the mark. He argues that sponsor decision-making cycles are a massively unde...
- Jul 22, 202615 min
Ep 2.27: 31 Years of Clinical Trials, Here's What Ted Trafford Knows for Sure
In this special episode, we mark Ted Trafford's 31st year in clinical trials with a candid reflection on what three decades in this industry actually teaches you. It started with a LinkedIn post Ted wrote where is says that after 31 years, he said he'd learned nothing. Listen in to hear what he meant by this. Liam and Ted go on to discuss the more experience you accumulate, the more you realise how much you still don't know. Liam frames this through the circle of competence: as your knowledg...
- Jul 10, 202618 min
Ep 2.29: Lasagna's Law and Building Recruitment Forecasts You Can Actually Trust
Every trial starts with a number on a slide, patients needed, months allotted, a clean straight line on a chart. Liam and Ted pull that line apart in this episode, starting with Lasagna's Law: the 1970s observation that eligible patients seem to vanish the moment a trial opens and reappear the moment it closes. They dig into why recruitment forecasts go wrong not because the math is bad, but because the assumptions underneath the math are never tested, tracked, or even written do...
- Jun 17, 202615 min
Ep. 2.25 The Burdens Still Breaking Clinical Trials: 50-Page Consents, Broken Tech, and Stolen CRCs
In this episode, Ted opens with a poem that captures the persistent, compounding burden on clinical trial sites: 50-page consents, non-functional tech, poached CRCs, financial holdbacks, and study designs that ask far too much from participants for far too little payoff. What follows is a candid conversation between Ted and Liam about why these problems haven't gone away and in many cases, have gotten worse. Study visits in 2026 take twice as long as a decade ago. One in three procedur...
- Jun 10, 202621 min
Ep 2.24 The Decision Threshold Matrix: Why Patient Motivation Isn't Fixed and What It Means for Trial Recruitment
In this episode, Liam and Ted explore one of the most underexamined problems in clinical trial recruitment: patient motivation is not static. Drawing on real-world experience from a late-night participant funnel audit to an insomnia study no-show Liam introduces two interconnected frameworks: the Decision Threshold Matrix and the Trial Value Equation. The matrix maps patient motivation across four quadrants defined by disease severity and perceived treatment adequacy. It breaks down h...
- May 21, 202613 min
Ep 2.23: Jill Fikowski on Why Participants Drop Out and What to Do About It (3/3)
In the final episode of our three-part series with Jill Fikowski, founder and CEO of Changemark Research + Evaluation, we get into one of the most persistent problems in clinical research: retention. Jill unpacks why participants drop out and it's rarely what sponsors assume. From there, we get into the pressure that lands on research coordinators when enrollment is behind, the practices that pressure produces. We also look at what happens after the last visit particularly in psychedel...
About Innovating Clinical Trials
Welcome to Innovating Clinical Trials, the podcast designed for clinical research professionals eager to deepen their understanding of clinical trials through concise, insightful segments. Join your hosts, Liam Eves and Ted Trafford, as they uncover the core issues in clinical research, reflect on the industry, and challenge conventional wisdom.Ted Trafford - https://probitymedical.com/With 30 years of experience in clinical research, Ted serves as the Director of Business Development, driving business growth and leading Feasibility and Site Relationship teams at Probity Medical Research, a clinical trial site administrative support company with a consortium of 75+ sites across four countries. As a writer and speaker, Ted contributes to thought leadership and strategic initiatives in the clinical trials industry, leveraging his extensive experience and creative approach to drive meaningful discussion and progress for Sponsors, CROs, Sites and Technology Vendors.Liam Eves - https://www.theendpointpodcast.com/Liam's held executive roles in SMOs and CROs, and led all major functions of trial delivery. His journey into the field began unexpectedly after an injury ended his career as a professional footballer. Over the years Liam has optimized trial delivery methods / systems for effective enrollment and trial delivery. Currently, he focuses on building and advising companies in the clinical trial space.Opinions expressed are those of the participants and not their employers.
Customized Recaps
AI-powered recaps with compact key takeaways, quotes, and insights.
Straight to Your Inbox
Get key takeaways from Innovating Clinical Trials in a 5-minute read.
Save Hours Every Week
Stay current on your favorite podcasts without falling behind.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Podzilla's Innovating Clinical Trials daily summary?
It's a free AI-powered email that summarizes new episodes of Innovating Clinical Trials as soon as they're published. You get the key takeaways, notable quotes, and links & mentions — all in a quick read.
How does the Innovating Clinical Trials podcast summary work?
When a new episode drops, our AI transcribes and analyzes it, then generates a personalized summary tailored to your interests and profession. It's delivered to your inbox every morning.
Is this an official Innovating Clinical Trials product?
No. Podzilla is an independent service that summarizes publicly available podcast content. We're not affiliated with or endorsed by Liam Eves and Ted Trafford.
Can I get summaries of other podcasts too?
Absolutely! The free plan covers up to 3 podcasts. Upgrade to Pro for 15, or Premium for 50. Browse our full catalog at /podcasts.
How often does Innovating Clinical Trials release new episodes?
Innovating Clinical Trials publishes weekly. Our AI generates a summary within hours of each new episode.
What topics does Innovating Clinical Trials cover?
Innovating Clinical Trials covers topics including Science, Life Sciences. Our AI identifies the specific themes in each episode and highlights what matters most to you.
Start getting Innovating Clinical Trials summaries tomorrow morning.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.
Free forever for up to 3 podcasts. No credit card required.