The pharma clinical trial space has long been broken for patients, physicians, and researchers. Recruitment, retention, and feasibility issues have perpetrated the clinical trial industry with no clear solution for any party. Janet Woodcock, Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the FDA, has been an outspoken voice on challenges that continue to persist in the clinical trial sphere.

“I personally believe, like many other people, that the clinical trial system we have right now is broken. It isn’t working to meet the objectives that we need it for. Our ability to generate the needed evidence efficiently and in a cost-effective matter will continue to be a barrier to innovation and to the quality of care around the world.”

There are two key challenges for clinical trial sites in the industry today:

1. Trial Selection: trial sites struggle to find and contract studies that they can recruit for effectively

2. Patient Recruitment: trial sites often employ highly manual patient identification processes

The problems with conducting a pharma clinical trial start with the recruitment process. If the right quality, quantity, and diversity of patients are not met, a trial cannot begin. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development conducted a study to quantify recruitment challenges in drug trials. Tufts found that across 150 clinical trials and nearly 16,000 study sites, 11% of sites fail to enroll even one patient, and 37% do not meet their enrollment goals. The inability to recruit patients effectively leads to costly time extensions. In fact, 80% of clinical trials do not reach recruitment targets in their allotted time and study delays cost anywhere between ​​$600K-$8M per trial per day. Enrollment failures happen often and are extremely costly; in the end, these failures lead to 55% of trials being terminated. Manual Processes only exacerbate the issues with recruitment. As trial sites comb through EHR patient by patient, precious time is lost, costs increase, and revenue opportunities are missed.

Enter Trially. Trially is revolutionizing the pharma clinical trial space with its Clinical Trials AI platform for clinical trial recruitment and site discovery. Trially helps site networks by automating the EHR patient search across all recruiting studies in seconds, effectively reducing patient search costs by up to 99% and increasing the number of qualified candidates available by 100x. The market is growing and ready for this type of innovation. In the U.S., the clinical trials market reached $22.6B in 2021 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5.4% from 2022 to 2030. The clinical trials industry’s rapid growth is supported by major market tailwinds such as increased R&D, rising vaccine trials, demand for personalized medicine, and technology adoption in clinical research.

Trially is solving a big problem in a big market with a stellar team; throughout each of our many conversations with the Trially team, we’ve left impressed, intrigued, and energized by the potential ahead. Co-founders Kyle McAllister, Trevor Welch, and Ramon Prieto bring the perfect blend of industry expertise and technical talent to solve such a complex problem. Kyle’s network expedites the early distribution process while Ramon and Trevor diligently work to develop Trially into a fast, simple, and high-value product, drawing from years of collective experience. The team bootstrapped from customer discovery to MVP in just 6 months, and Kyle leveraged his network to secure the first contract within a three-week sales cycle. The Trially team is scrappy; they hustle and expertly balance confidence and ego. We believe that these characteristics are early indicators of success. Redbud VC is proud to be the first institutional investor in Trially and be a part of their company-building journey.