Trials contractor Vial will use proceeds of $67 million fundraising round to expand in EU and Asia according to CEO, Simon Burns.
Vial – which describes itself as a tech-enabled, next-generation clinical research organization (CRO) – completed the Series B round this week with backing coming from General Catalyst, Byers Capital and BoxGroup among others. To date the firm has raised over $100 million in cumulative equity funding.
The proceeds will expand the San Francisco CRO’s geographic reach according to Burns who told Clinical Insider “we will be using proceeds to expand globally into EU and Asia-Pacific in order to support our biotech client's global trials as well as invest in the technology platform that enables faster, cheaper trials.”
Vial’s offering is based on three integrated technology systems: a site start-up platform, an eSource platform and patient recruiting platform. The idea is that combined the technologies streamline recruitment, enrolment and retention processes Burns said, citing the site start-up system as an example.
“Our site start-up platform allows sites to upload all required documents in order to on-board into a trial entirely on our platform. This contrasts to typical trials where sites are on-boarded over email and the back and forth can often take months.
He continued: “Site communication is also improved through the platform with a clear set of tasks shown on the dashboard for sites to be able to action on.”
At present Vial is “focused on small and medium sized biotech companies” according to Burns, who claimed the integrated nature of the CRO’s technologies is what differentiates it from the competition.
“While there are many point solutions - tech for on-boarding, tech for eSource, tech for remote source data verification - Vial is the first end to end platform. Our platform is interconnected enabling a radical shift in the cost and timelines to run trials.”
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