Session 4B: Rethinking innovation and evidence in medtech
Tracks
Track 2
| Wednesday, May 20, 2026 |
| 4:30 PM - 5:15 PM |
Details
“Innovation” is one of the most overused words in medtech - yet novelty alone rarely delivers meaningful clinical or economic value. At the same time, device trials remain slow and misaligned with how technologies actually evolve. This session connects value creation with evidence strategy, exploring the difference between incremental improvement and true clinical benefit, unpacking what “disruptive” really means, and examining the economic lens of hospitals as customers. It then looks to the future of device trials: adaptive designs, digital endpoints, registry-based RCTs, AI-enabled monitoring, and hybrid pivotal/real-world models that generate faster, smarter, and more decision-relevant evidence.
Speaker
John Kilmartin
Adjunct Professor
University of Galway
Panellist
Mrs Simone Knab
Clinical Trials Governance Manager
Child & Adolescent Health Service
Panellist
Prof. Steve Webb
Professor of Critical Care Platform Trials, School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine
Monash University
Panellist
