At Veeva R&D and Quality Summit in Boston, the pain points of managing complex processes and entering data manually across studies became the rallying cry for a new industry era. The message: the weight of legacy systems must be lifted if life sciences is to deliver faster, more efficient trials by 2030.
Veeva AI: Agents in the Vault
Veeva CEO Peter Gassner indicated that the company is entering a new chapter defined by two commitments: the infusion of artificial intelligence into its Vault Platform and the push for industry-standard applications.
Veeva AI introduces “agentic” intelligence into Vault, with specialized agents designed to handle repetitive tasks such as translation, medical coding, or case intake. A coordinating “super agent” determines the best resource for a given query. The company aims to achieve a 20% productivity gain across the industry by 2030 — a bold target, given the complexity of global life sciences operations.
A critical enabler is the Model Context Protocol (MCP), developed by Anthropic, which is being adopted as a standard to allow agents to communicate across Vaults and with external applications.
Industry Standard Applications
The second highlight of the Summit centered on simplification and standardization, with Veeva delivering industry standard applications. Gassner emphasized that Veeva aims to continue to make investments in some of its mature applications, such as Veeva eTMF and Veeva QualityDocs, to continue to deliver advancements that save time and effort. By doing so, the company intends to reduce friction, speed collaboration, and free up resources for innovation.
Merck’s “Zero Gravity”
The benefits of industry standard applications was brought to life through Merck’s transformation program, branded “Zero Gravity.”
Jennifer Sheller, Senior Vice President and Head of Global Clinical Trial Operations at Merck, stated that the company has been compelled to modernize its increasingly complex technology environment. For years, clinical development progressed despite an architecture complex and heavily customized systems. The goal now is to transition to an integrated platform that reduces manual effort and enhances transparency across operations.
By early 2025, Merck had migrated all of its trials into Veeva CTMS, replacing more than 50 Excel trackers. Its pharmacovigilance team also launched Veeva Safety globally. Sheller highlighted that coordinators are no longer required to re-enter local lab ranges for each study, with sponsors inputting data once and sites selecting from standardized dropdowns. This shift has already reduced query errors by up to 10 percent, allowing staff to focus more on patient-facing activities.
Sheller characterized the program as an effort to remove the weight of legacy systems and enable faster delivery of medicines and vaccines.
Biotech Voices
While Merck demonstrated large-scale transformation, smaller organizations shared equally telling stories.
A clinical operations leader at a mid-sized biotech described their company’s evolution from a landscape of SharePoint folders and email threads to a unified suite of clinical tools. Within 18 months, the team implemented eTMF, CTMS, EDC, and Site Connect. The VP indicated that compliance levels have surpassed 80%, monitors are now generating trip reports automatically, and the medical team is collaborating on protocols in real time.
They also stressed that progress was achieved by avoiding perfectionism. The organization focused on moving forward quickly, even if implementations were not flawless.
At Avidity Biosciences, Director of IT Cindy Novak described a different starting point, focusing on regulatory and quality. The company went live on Veeva LIMS during the Summit itself. Novak noted that the move from a highly paper-based environment to connected quality systems is giving scientists more time for research rather than data management.
She added that role-based training has the potential to dramatically reduce administrative burden. In one IT group, training requirements dropped from 30 SOPs to just 5, cutting hours of non-value-added work. Novak characterized these changes as critical for enabling teams to spend more time on developing and delivering advancing therapies for patients.
Broader Enhancements
Beyond customer case studies, Veeva highlighted several developments across its product portfolio:
- Clinical: Over 8,000 research sites now use Veeva SiteVault, with more than 37,000 studies completed or active. Veeva Site Connect adoption is accelerating, with 11 of the top 20 pharma companies standardizing sponsor–site data and document sharing.
- Regulatory: Continuous publishing is supported by Veeva Publishing, while a new product, Veeva Labeling, enables global label authoring and management.
- Safety: AI agents for case extraction and narrative generation are expected to debut in 2026, with Merck already live globally on Veeva Safety.
The Takeaway
For all the technical detail, the stories that resonated most at the Summit were about people: coordinators freed from retyping lab ranges, monitors no longer drafting trip reports by hand, and scientists spending less time on SOP training and more time on discovery.
If Veeva achieves its goal of a 20% productivity gain, the difference will be transformative — not just for companies managing systems, but for patients waiting for faster access to therapies.
This article is sponsored by Veeva Systems
Moe Alsumidaie is Chief Editor of The Clinical Trial Vanguard. Moe holds decades of experience in the clinical trials industry. Moe also serves as Head of Research at CliniBiz and Chief Data Scientist at Annex Clinical Corporation.
