Evinova and Citeline Forge AI Alliance to Overhaul Clinical Trials

NEW YORK, NY – February 26, 2026 – In a significant move to accelerate pharmaceutical innovation, health tech firm Evinova and clinical intelligence leader Citeline have announced a multi-year partnership set to reshape how new medicines are developed. The collaboration will embed Citeline’s vast repositories of trial data directly into Evinova’s artificial intelligence-driven Study Designer platform, aiming to transform a traditionally slow and manual process into a rapid, data-powered discipline.

This strategic alliance addresses one of the most persistent bottlenecks in drug development: the design of clinical studies. This critical phase involves hundreds of complex decisions that dictate a trial's cost, duration, and ultimate feasibility. By integrating comprehensive real-world data with an AI-native solution, the partnership promises to empower pharmaceutical sponsors to design smarter, faster, and more cost-effective studies, potentially shaving months or even years off the journey from lab to patient.

A New Engine for Trial Design

For decades, clinical teams have relied on a patchwork of spreadsheets, historical precedent, and institutional knowledge to map out study protocols. This fragmented approach often leads to suboptimal designs, costly amendments, and extended timelines. Evinova, a health tech company spun out of pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, aims to replace this legacy workflow with its AI-native Study Designer.

Through the new agreement, the platform will now be supercharged with data from two of Citeline's flagship products. Sitetrove, a database of over 500,000 investigators and 190,000 trial sites across 185 countries, provides the granular detail needed to assess site feasibility and investigator availability. Simultaneously, Trialtrove, which aggregates intelligence from over 60,000 sources, will offer industry-wide benchmarks on everything from enrollment timelines and patient populations to study endpoints and geographic trends. This fusion of data and AI allows study teams to model countless scenarios in minutes, optimizing for variables like cost, complexity, patient burden, and sustainability. Evinova claims its Study Designer can already deliver cost estimations with 97 percent accuracy.

"By integrating Citeline's industry-leading trial intelligence with our AI-native platform, we're empowering sponsors to make smarter design decisions that reduce development timelines while improving study quality across all therapeutic areas,” said Sean Connolly, Chief Product & Technology Officer at Evinova, in the announcement.

Underpinning this integration is a robust commitment to data security and governance. Evinova has built its systems on a foundation compliant with rigorous standards such as GDPR and GxP, utilizing frameworks like ISO 27001. Data is logically isolated for each sponsor and encrypted, ensuring that the powerful insights generated by the AI do not compromise the confidentiality or integrity of sensitive clinical information.

A Strategic Play in a Competitive Arena

The partnership arrives as the life sciences industry aggressively pursues digital transformation. The market for AI-powered clinical trial solutions is heating up, with established technology titans like Medidata (a Dassault Systèmes company) and Veeva Systems also embedding AI across their platforms. These companies are leveraging artificial intelligence to optimize everything from data management to regulatory compliance, making the field increasingly competitive.

Evinova's strategy appears to be one of deep integration and proven results. By forming a direct alliance with Citeline, a primary source of industry intelligence, it creates a powerful, all-in-one solution that minimizes the need for users to switch between disparate systems. This move not only enhances the value of its Study Designer but also strengthens its competitive moat.

Recent client adoption suggests this strategy is resonating with major industry players. Bristol Myers Squibb is deploying the platform's Cost Optimizer module across its global portfolio to enhance efficiency. Similarly, Astellas has adopted the Study Designer to create more patient-centered trials and reduce rework. These collaborations with pharmaceutical leaders, in addition to its foundational relationship with AstraZeneca, signal strong market confidence in Evinova’s approach.

“This partnership underscores the importance of Citeline’s best-in-class data, AI and proprietary protocol intelligence in bringing a digital, data-driven approach to clinical development that accelerates time to trial outcomes,” noted Suzanne Caruso, General Manager at Citeline Clinical, Regulatory, and Strategic Intelligence.

From Faster Trials to Accelerated Cures

Beyond the corporate strategy and technological innovation lies the ultimate goal: improving and saving patient lives. The efficiencies promised by this partnership have profound implications for healthcare. Evinova points to outcomes from its digital solutions, validated in a publication in the prestigious journal Nature Medicine, which demonstrated the potential for a 6-month acceleration in trial delivery and a 32% reduction in costs.

When a trial can be designed and launched six months faster, a potentially life-saving therapy reaches patients six months sooner. When trial costs are reduced by nearly a third, resources can be reallocated to other promising research programs, expanding the overall pipeline of new medicines. Furthermore, smarter design directly impacts the individuals who volunteer for studies. By optimizing protocols to reduce patient burden—for example, by minimizing site visits or simplifying procedures—trials can become more accessible and humane, which in turn can improve recruitment and retention rates.

This patient-centric focus is a cornerstone of the modern clinical trial paradigm. The integration of Citeline's data allows designers to better understand patient populations and geographic distributions, enabling them to select sites that are more convenient for participants and design protocols that are less disruptive to their lives. This shift from a purely operational focus to one that includes the patient experience is a critical evolution for the industry.

AstraZeneca’s Broader Digital Health Gambit

The creation of Evinova itself is a key part of AstraZeneca’s long-term vision. By spinning out its proven, internally developed digital health solutions into a separate commercial entity, AstraZeneca is making a strategic bet on the digital transformation of the entire life sciences sector. The goal is not only to improve its own R&D engine but to drive and profit from an industry-wide standard.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot has articulated a vision where digital technology fundamentally improves patient care and accelerates the development of new medicines. Evinova is the vehicle for realizing that vision, commercializing a suite of tools that have already been scaled and validated within one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. This includes forming a collaborative ecosystem with other pharma companies, CROs like Parexel and Fortrea, and technology partners such as Amazon Web Services.

The partnership with Citeline is the latest and one of the most significant steps in this journey. It demonstrates a commitment to building a best-in-class platform by integrating premier external data sources rather than relying solely on internal capabilities. This open, collaborative model is designed to accelerate adoption and create a network effect, where the platform becomes more powerful as more data and more users contribute to its intelligence engine. This initiative represents a clear signal that the future of drug development will be increasingly collaborative, data-driven, and powered by artificial intelligence.