Author: Elena Filimonova, Chief Marketing Officer
Snapshot
- Streamline trial workflows: Suvoda’s unified tech platform connects patient, site, and sponsor tasks for smoother clinical trial operations.
- Improve patient and site experiences: The Suvoda patient app and Sofia AI assistant simplify scheduling, travel, payments, and reminders.
- Apply AI responsibly: AI tools reduce repetitive work, guide decisions, and maintain reliability in regulated trials.
With the Suvoda-Greenphire merger complete and the first unified product release delivered, Suvoda’s product organization is focused on what matters most: a clear vision, a unified technology platform, and a faster path to innovation. I sat down with E.K. Koh, Chief Product Officer at Suvoda, to talk about what his team has learned, how customer input shapes our work, and where he sees opportunity for pharmaceutical sponsors in 2026 and beyond.
Now that Suvoda's unified technology platform is coming to life, how do you see it making life easier for patients, sites, and sponsors?
E.K.: Bringing Suvoda and Greenphire together gave us an opportunity to step back and look at how we could truly support the clinical trial experience end to end. As we did so, one central question shaped our decisions at each step: does this simplify the patient or site journey? That focus has helped sharpen our product vision.
What we’re building connects patient experiences and site workflows in ways that used to require a lot of handoffs between systems or vendors. For example, things like visit management, supply decisions, and patient processes such as randomization can now work together more naturally. They can influence each other in real time. That means less reconciliation work for sites, better visibility for sponsors, and a smoother experience for patients around each visit.
Just as important as the technology is the trust in the people behind it. Customers want to know that when we commit to quality or timelines, we follow through. They’re not just buying software, they’re buying an experience that includes support, responsiveness, and consistency.
I’m confident in what we’re delivering because I see how much our people care. Many of us are here because we want to make a real difference in the patient experience. When teams see our products actually making the clinical trial journey better, it reinforces why they joined Suvoda in the first place. That sense of purpose is part of what strengthens what we’re able to offer to sponsors, sites, and patients.
Reflecting on 2025, was there a particular innovation or product release that you and your team are most proud of?
E.K.: The Suvoda patient app and Sofia AI assistant stand out immediately. The app, in particular, embodies the unified patient journey we’ve been working to support. It brings together the core elements of what patients say they need—reminders, visit scheduling, travel support, easy questionnaire access, payments—and places them in one place, right in their pocket. Seeing that vision come to life was meaningful because it shows what’s possible when we connect the right data and design around real patient needs.
I’m very proud of what the teams accomplished this year. They had to bring together different teams, approaches, and product philosophies and still move quickly. That collaboration gives us confidence as we look ahead to 2026.
As you look toward the 2026 roadmap, what types of improvements or innovations do you think sponsors and other user groups will be most interested in?
E.K.: What we’ve heard from sponsors and CROs is that they want simplification without losing flexibility. That’s guiding a lot of our 2026 thinking. We’re focusing on improvements that reduce friction—whether it’s fewer steps for patients, reduced burden for sites, or more clarity for sponsors.
We’re also investing in areas where automation and AI can genuinely help. Not automation for its own sake, but in places where we can remove repetitive work, guide decision points, or make actions more intuitive. While we’re not announcing specific features yet, the overall direction is clear: strong interoperability, user-friendly workflows, and capability for sponsors to harness the platform to their unique study needs.
How is Suvoda working with customers, sites, and sponsors to influence Suvoda's future product direction?
E.K.: We rely heavily on customer input in many forms. We have formal customer and site advisory boards, early adopter programs, and market surveys. Our product teams are also primed to listen to ongoing feedback from our Sales and Services teams who are working day-to-day with trial customers. We are also listening to sites and patients because those stakeholders feel the operational realities of clinical trials most directly. All of those inputs and insights matter. I think it takes a village to pull off a great product that serves the needs of its users.
A handful of other clinical trial tech companies talk about their platforms. Why do you think the Suvoda Platform stands out?
E.K.: The starting point for me is staying relentlessly focused on the people who make trials possible—patients, site staff, and sponsors. If we use technology to simplify their experience and reduce the friction they feel every day, we’re heading in the right direction. For a patient, that might mean arranging travel or finding visit details without digging through emails. For site users, it’s fewer systems to reconcile and fewer steps to complete a task. When the experience gets easier, the entire trial benefits.
I'd encourage sponsors to examine what companies mean when they say “platform.” Many companies deliver a collection of point-solutions that are essentially bolted together. They are what I’d describe as user-experience integrations, not true platforms. They may offer single sign-on, consistent branding, and maybe a shared launchpad. That’s helpful and necessary, but not sufficient. What really unlocks value is unification at the data level.
We’re unifying the core data elements and product functionality that truly connect a trial. Once elements like participants are shared, you can support actions that flow naturally across products. For example, an upcoming visit window in IRT can trigger a reminder to schedule an appointment; a scheduled appointment can prompt a reminder to schedule travel; and a completed visit can generate a reminder to file expenses for reimbursement that then triggers stipend payment. These connection points are only possible because of our unified data layer and our consistent aim to create a more seamless trials experience for patients and sites.
That’s the real strength of our approach. It’s not only about having a modern tech stack. It’s about having a platform built on shared, trusted data so every product can create more connected, human-centered workflows.
What technology trends are you watching, especially related to AI?
E.K.: There’s a lot of experimentation happening with AI right now, across every industry. What we’re focused on is how AI can simplify the experience for the people involved in clinical trials. Our starting point was Sofia, our AI assistant currently for use in Suvoda IRT. As we look ahead, we are aiming for AI customer tools that reflect a shift from generative AI to agentic AI, where the system doesn’t just produce information but helps you take action.
But harnessing AI in clinical trials is different from many industries. The standard is higher. Any agent we introduce has to operate in a way that’s fully traceable and auditable. It can’t behave unpredictably or offer answers that can’t be trusted, because this is a highly regulated environment and real human health impacts depend on accuracy. Our approach is about practical, responsible use of AI so that we are using it to remove friction, guide decisions, and make work easier, while meeting the expectations our customers have for reliability and control.
Authors
Elena Filimonova
Chief Marketing Officer, Suvoda
E.K. Koh
Chief Product Officer, Suvoda