The Cure Is in the Crowd — But the System Isn’t Listening

Why traditional trials waste time, money, and lives — and how adaptive platform trials can fix it.

Introduction

Clinical trials are the gold standard of evidence — and yet the system that runs them is failing.

Designed decades ago, the traditional trial model tests one intervention at a time, over years, at enormous cost. It discards learnings from “failed” trials, excludes most patients from participation, and often delivers answers too late to matter.

Meanwhile, people suffer. Treatments go untested. Data goes unused. And potential cures sit in limbo — not because they don’t work, but because our systems aren’t built to find them.

At Empiric, we believe the solution isn’t more trials. It’s smarter trials. Faster trials. Shared trials. Trials that learn from every patient, adapt to data in real time, and are embedded into the health systems where care is delivered.

The cure may already be in the crowd. It’s time we built a system that listens.

The Problem: Clinical Trials Designed for a World That No Longer Exists

The traditional randomised controlled trial (RCT) model is:

• Slow – often taking 8–10 years to move from concept to clinical decision.
• Expensive – costing hundreds of millions per intervention.
• Rigid – unable to respond to new insights midstream.
• Redundant – duplicating infrastructure and asking the same questions in silos.
• Exclusionary – limiting participation to select populations and well-funded conditions.

We rely on this model to guide life-and-death decisions — yet it operates like a cottage industry, not a modern, scalable system. The result? Unmet need persists. Research waste continues. And only a fraction of what could be learned ever makes it into practice.

A Better Way: Adaptive Platform Trials

Adaptive Platform Trials (APTs) are designed for complexity, speed, and learning. They move beyond one-size-fits-one research and instead offer:

• Adaptive designs – allowing real-time modification of randomisation, sample size, and treatment arms based on accumulating data.
• Platform infrastructure – enabling multiple interventions to be tested simultaneously under a single protocol.
• Shared control groups – reducing required patient numbers and accelerating recruitment.
• Perpetual readiness – allowing new treatments to be added as others are removed.

APTs have already proven their worth — most notably during COVID-19. But outside of a crisis, the systems needed to support them have not yet been embedded. Empiric exists to change that.

Empiric’s Vision: 10x Smarter, Faster, and More Impactful Trials

At Empiric, we are building the infrastructure to scale adaptive platform trials across disease areas and health systems. Our approach is structured around five transformative layers:

1. Adaptive Designs — Smarter Decisions, Sooner

We use Bayesian and frequentist methods to enable:

• Interim analyses that stop trials early for futility or success
• Dose-finding and treatment selection that evolve mid-trial
• Efficiency without compromising rigour

✅ Impact: Faster identification of effective (and ineffective) treatments. Better use of every patient’s data. More ethical trials.

2. Platform Trials — From Scratch to Scalable

We’ve standardised core trial components:

• Protocol frameworks
• Ethics and governance processes
• Site contracts and data systems

Trials plug into a shared infrastructure — not built from scratch each time.

✅ Impact: Launch times cut by months. Cost per insight reduced. Trials become scalable systems, not bespoke projects.

3. Platform of Platforms — Interconnected, Not Isolated

We’re connecting disease-specific platforms (e.g. mental health, rare disease, infection) into an integrated research ecosystem. These platforms:

• Share governance, technology, and processes
• Reduce duplication and barriers to entry
• Support under-researched areas

✅ Impact: More equitable access to trials. Scalability across conditions. A trial-ready network Australia can lead globally.

4. Automation — Smarter Software, Not Just More Staff

Empiric’s technology automates:

• Protocol and eCRF generation
• Randomisation logic and simulations
• Reporting, dashboards, and regulatory outputs

We focus on reducing human error, administrative burden, and delay.

✅ Impact: Trial setup in days, not months. Better compliance. More time for thinking, less for typing.

5. Embedded Trials — Research in the Flow of Care

We partner with health service organisations (HSOs) to embed trials into clinical workflows, allowing:

• Real-time recruitment
• Evaluation of interventions in real-world settings
• Implementation of findings into practice

✅ Impact: Faster translation of evidence. Trials that reflect everyday care. Research that reaches those who need it most.

Why Now: The Window Is Narrow

A perfect storm is forming:

• Regulators are opening doors to adaptive and platform models.
• Health systems are under pressure to do more with less.
• Technology can now support complexity and scale.
• Patients and funders want faster, more meaningful results.

But without investment and coordination, we risk sliding back into business as usual. The COVID-19 moment showed us what’s possible — but the infrastructure to sustain it is still fragile.

Empiric is here to seize this moment.

From Scarcity to Abundance

Traditional trials are built on a mindset of scarcity: limited data, limited patients, limited capacity.

Empiric is building for abundance:

• Abundant insight from every patient
• Abundant reuse of infrastructure
• Abundant collaboration across conditions and stakeholders

This is not about doing more trials — it’s about doing better trials. Trials that scale. Trials that adapt. Trials that matter.

Conclusion: Stop Wasting What We Already Have

Every day, patients receive care that could teach us something. But the current system isn't listening — and the cost of silence is lives lost, time wasted, and opportunities missed.

At Empiric, we believe that if the system was built to learn, we could radically improve how quickly safe and effective treatments reach those who need them.

The cure is in the crowd. Let’s build the system to find it.