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Psych Congress 2025 Take-Aways
This month, we’re bringing Psych Congress 2025 to your inbox—distilled for the STARR community of research sites, pharma/CRO partners, and advocates. Beyond the headlines, the meeting underscored a clear mandate: pair practice-ready evidence with trust-building in the community.
Here are our top takeaways, plus “So what” insights on what it means for sites, and practical tips.
The Take-Aways…
Pipeline breadth. Dense MDD/TRD/schizophrenia posters—many slicing by anxious distress, mixed features, and long-term outcomes—signal more targeted inclusion and endpoints ahead.
So what: Map your 2025–26 study mix to these subgroups; refresh prescreen questionnaires (anxiety/mixed features flags); train staff on outcome domains sites will be asked to capture and explain to families.
Schizophrenia innovation. Non-dopaminergic mechanisms and long-acting injectables (LAIs) continued to draw interest for adherence and outcomes.
So what: Prep for next-wave mechanisms (staff education modules, AE monitoring checklists); optimize LAI logistics (inventory, cold-chain, administration SOPs); build caregiver engagement steps into retention plans.
Click the picture to download Dr. Peter Weiden’s wonderful presentation from the meeting!
Practical psychopharm updates. Late-stage data emphasized sleep-depression phenotypes and cleaner adjunct options that could influence step-therapy discussions.
So what: Add “sleep disturbance” screeners at prescreen; tune recruitment to phenotype (e.g., insomnia + MDD); equip coordinators with payer-friendly talking points on safety/tolerability and functional outcomes.
Psychedelics: implementation over hype. First U.S. real-world psilocybin outcomes from Oregon services hit the poster floor; meanwhile, COMP360’s Phase 3 win shaped TRD sequencing chatter, and FDA’s public MDMA CRL raised the trial-quality bar.
So what: Build a readiness checklist (screening, supervision, documentation) and a patient-facing “state-program vs clinical-trial” one-pager.
TD vigilance, especially in long-term care (LTC). Fresh analyses documented undertreatment/mislabeling of tardive dyskinesia in LTC.
So what: Train referral partners on AIMS; include a “TD vs EPS” quick card in community education and consent reviews for antipsychotic-exposed studies.
Digital therapeutics are becoming “real” (and reimbursable). Dedicated programming on digital health/PDTs + bipartisan bills (S.1702/H.R.3288) to establish Medicare/Medicaid coverage signal maturing pathways you can reference in site-integration talks.
So what: Prep a 1-page explainer for sites on documenting PDT use alongside trial participation.
Click the picture to download Dr. Andrew Cutler’s excellent presentation from the meeting!
Measurement-Based Care (MBC) + patient voice moved up the agenda. Agenda materials and industry posters leaned into structured PROs and patient-voice/AI analyses—useful for selecting instruments and scripting how coordinators review scores in visits.
So what: Standardize PHQ-9/GAD-7/functional measures in pre-screen and retention check-ins. Record scores so you can show a quick trend line at visits. You can tell participants: “These 3 quick surveys help us track how you’re feeling and functioning so we can support you better.”
Advocacy in the room. Stronger ties among clinicians, advocacy groups, and people with lived experience advanced equity and trust.
So what: Co-host quarterly “Clinical Trials 101” Q&As with local advocacy partners; add a lived-experience advisor to your site’s outreach planning; publish a myth-busting one-pager for families.
Click the picture to download S&PAA’s Dr. Arun Nagendra’s poster on diminished awareness from the meeting!
