Some research reshapes drug development without dominating the news cycle. A survey can quantify a long-suspected patient burden. A regulatory paper can outline a route away from an invasive endpoint. And a clinical trial can test not only a treatment, but a different way to generate evidence.
So we asked six industry leaders which scientific paper or study they keep sharing with colleagues — and why. Their choices span organ transplantation, MASH, breast and prostate cancer, real-world data and decentralized trials.
Here’s what they had to say.
Editor’s note: These responses have been edited for brevity and style.
Dr. David-Alexandre C. Gros, CEO of Eledon Pharmaceuticals
More than 10,000 transplant patients across 232 transplant centers were asked a question we don’t ask nearly enough: What does it actually feel like to live on current immunosuppression drugs?
The answer was sobering: Nearly all respondents reported at least one medication side effect, and 54% of the side effects they reported have a moderate or major daily impact on their lives. Fatigue, headache, insomnia and tremor were the most frequent. Transplant medicine spends a lot of energy celebrating one-year graft survival and not nearly enough asking how patients are feeling over the next decade.
This paper puts hard numbers on that gap, and once you've seen them you can't stop thinking about them. (Disclosure: One study author has disclosed consulting for Eledon.)
Robin Mogg, senior vice president of biostatistics and data science at Madrigal Pharmaceuticals
This paper stood out to me because it addresses an important question facing the field: What evidence will be needed for noninvasive tests to serve as surrogate endpoints in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis clinical trials?
As is the case for many chronic diseases, once a field sees innovative new medicines come to market, new questions emerge about diagnostic tools, disease monitoring and approvable endpoints. For years, one of the central challenges in MASH, a serious liver disease, has been how to reliably measure disease progression and treatment benefit. We’ve primarily used liver biopsy, but the field has increasingly recognized the need for less invasive approaches that can support drug development and, ultimately, patient care.
The scientific and regulatory considerations are complex, and important questions remain. The ability to conduct trials without repeat liver biopsies could reduce participant burden, improve recruitment and retention, and enable studies that better reflect the broader population of patients living with MASH. Realizing that potential will depend on continued collaboration among regulators, researchers and industry to align on and generate the evidence needed to validate noninvasive approaches and further their use in MASH drug development.
Dr. Steven Quay, founder and CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, Inc.
The scientific paper I have probably shared the most this year is our work with investigators at
the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, examining endoxifen and mammographic breast density. I keep coming back to it because it represents the kind of science I find most satisfying: starting with an important clinical problem, understanding why an existing approach falls short and then asking whether biology gives us a better solution.
Tamoxifen can substantially reduce breast cancer risk, but its use for prevention has always been limited by side effects and poor acceptance among otherwise healthy women.
Mammographic density provides an especially useful window into this problem because it is both a strong breast cancer risk factor and a measurable biomarker of drug activity. The endoxifen study showed that we could produce a meaningful reduction in breast density while maintaining a favorable tolerability profile.
What makes the paper worth sharing is not simply the result, but the larger idea behind it: Prevention only works if people are willing to use the preventive treatment. Developing a more acceptable way to reduce breast cancer risk could ultimately have an impact far beyond treating disease after it appears.
Dr. Richard Andres, head of U.S. Medical Affairs Oncology at Bayer
I've shared the phase 2 ARASEC trial presented at the American Urological Association in 2026. What I find particularly compelling about [this study] is that it not only adds to a growing body of evidence supporting the efficacy and safety of darolutamide plus ADT in metastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer, but it also demonstrates the value of innovative study designs.
The ARASEC trial matched patient-level data from the darolutamide plus ADT arm with data from a historical external phase 3 trial control arm. By leveraging an external control population rather than enrolling a traditional ADT-alone control arm, the study not only allowed all patients to receive an active therapy, but also demonstrated an innovative approach to generating clinical evidence in a treatment setting where standards of care have evolved.
Beyond the clinical findings, it highlights the importance of exploring new approaches to evidence generation. For me, it serves as a reminder that advancing cancer care requires both strong science and thoughtful innovation in how we conduct research.
Zhaohui Su, vice president of strategic consulting at Veristat
What I find most compelling is this paper’s call for an integrated ecosystem that combines the rigor of randomized clinical trials with the real-world relevance of routinely collected healthcare data. As regulators, health technology assessment bodies, payers, providers and patients seek more comprehensive and actionable insights, this approach offers a path toward better-informed assessments of therapies and outcomes.
I have shared the paper widely because it outlines the policy, methodological and governance foundations for integrating clinical trial findings and real-world data across the product lifecycle.
It also provides a practical framework for generating information that is both scientifically robust and fit for regulatory, reimbursement and clinical use. Its emphasis on trust, transparency and cross-stakeholder collaboration is particularly relevant as AI and advanced analytics accelerate the pace and scale of knowledge generation. In my view, it offers an important roadmap for the future of drug development, market access and evidence-based healthcare.
Dr. Pamela Tenaerts, chief medical officer at Medable
The papers I share most are the expected net present value studies that organizations I have worked for produce on decentralized trials and patient engagement.
I hope we make decisions based on real evidence in drug development. Involving patients early in trial design is good practice, but under “first patient, first visit” pressure, it was usually cut. The expected net value papers gave study teams a financial argument for keeping this evidence in, as patient engagement and decentralization carry a measurable return.
The patient engagement paper appeared around the same time that patient officer roles started emerging across the industry, and I see a direct line between the two: Give organizations a good economic argument and they build a role around it.
