Lisa Kerr on why 95% of eligible patients never join a clinical trial

Published: 14 July 2026

Lisa Kerr is Head of Patient Engagement at Evinova, AstraZeneca's health tech business — a PhD chemist who climbed to global project director, hit a cliff edge, and came back with a mission.

In this episode Lisa talks openly about the divorce, the clinical depression, and the three months as an outpatient at the Priory that reshaped her career. She founded AstraZeneca's Safe Space employee resource group after one Workplace post she thought would end her career — and built mental health navigation tools that scaled globally.

She then turns that lived experience on the industry itself: only 5–7% of eligible patients ever join a clinical trial, and that number has barely moved in a decade despite digitisation and healthcare transformation.