Contract research organization

So we are absolutely live and well with the Pathfinder Pathways piece.

We've engaged several pharmaceutical companies, a couple diagnostic companies.

Interestingly, there are some CROs that have reached out as well, because as you had mentioned and intimated there, they're looking for patients to enroll in.

They're very project-based.

So we're working on a clinical trial for this particular disease this time.

Nindahaanda, do you want to go first? [laughs]

Well, I think for clinical development, what was sold is really improving, um, you know, operational efficiencies, uh, with how we run our clinical trials, and I do see some progress made on that front, um, especially with regards to, you know, how, um, CROs have been partnering with us, um, as sponsor companies on site selection and really making projections around patient recruitment and the length of the studies, um, as an example.

I think the second area where I'm pleasantly maybe surprised by is more of integration of AI-based dashboards into, um, the clinical data review dashboards, and I think this plays a very critical role, especially in the case of larger phase trials where we have so much data for, you know, patient populations of 600 to 1,000 in one trial.

And, you know, previously what a medical monitor or clinical scientist would've done is just gone line by line on the listings and done their patient profile reviews.

Now, we actually also work with a ton of contract research organizations.

I would say CROs are our fastest providers.

user base at the moment.

I mean, of course, academics as well.

But I would say medium and large pharma and then CROs are kind of our larger user bases.

Do you find any differences in the research needs between, you know, across those different types of customers? So across, you know, maybe biotech startups versus CROs versus academics versus pharma? Like if we look at those four, have you seen anything that has surprised you?

Nothing that really surprises me.

I mean, I think it makes sense, right? Small biotechs, they maybe have one or two assets that they're trying and they're like, we're doing one study.

We're a small company of 23 people.

And so partnerships for us, especially on the CRO and CDMO side is really big because we want to be lean and we want to use the internal resources and expertise that we have, but then leverage external ones.

And so from a CRO perspective, finding the right CRO is crucial and making sure that they can work with you on your timelines and then making sure that they can perform at a very high level.

We have encountered difficulties in the past with some CROs, and so you have to then be able to pivot quickly.

But having that ability to find the right partner, same on the CDMO side and in a lot of areas, because we don't want to build this huge internal team right now.

We want to stay lean and nimble, stay capital efficient, and also hire for the best expertise.

I know there's a lot of time that goes into selection of CROs.

And to your point, there's mixed results.

And it all comes down to the appetite for some of their big customers to do infectious disease trials and to then do the associated contract research systems as well, or basically agreements on the back of it.

Now, for the industry, the CROs, the only sort of bigger picture wise, which is slightly because of AI, it's meaning that some of the customers now are starting to insource some of that sort of traditionally CRO technology because they have the expertise that they can get that information on the contract research just at the edges.

So that's a bit of margin.

And then the other side is a lot of drug development now in the world is being done in China.