Will LLMs Make CROs Redundant?
As large language models (LLMs), GenAI, workflow automation, and integrated operational platforms continue to evolve, an increasingly uncomfortable question is beginning to emerge within clinical research: Why are so many additional organizational, management, and software layers still required to run clinical trials? For decades, CROs have played a central role in pharmaceutical research. Historically, this made complete sense. Pharmaceutical companies needed global operational infrastructure, therapeutic expertise, monitoring capacity, regulatory operations, staffing, laboratory services, and the ability to rapidly execute increasingly complex multinational clinical trials. However, modern clinical trial operations have also become heavily fragmented. Today, Sponsors, CROs, vendors, laboratories, and sites often maintain overlapping operational systems, duplicated reporting layers, reconciliation trackers, parallel oversight structures, and multiple disconnected software environments...