Simon Burns: Good morning, Wendy. Thank you for joining us.
Wendy Pinson: Good morning, Simon. Thank you for having me.
Simon Burns: Fantastic. Well, we always like to do a welcome interview with each of our new team members, and we’re beyond thrilled to be conducting a welcome interview for you. Before we jump in a quick background on Vial, I’m Simon co-founder and CEO. We started the company just over two and a half years ago on a mission to reimagine clinical trials, and are excited to launch our oncology therapeutic area, which is now our fourth as we expand across therapeutic areas to support sponsors in every way that we can.
Wendy, tell us a little bit about your background and what you’ve been working on the last couple of years.
Wendy Pinson: Sure. So I’ve been in the clinical research industry for 14 years. I’m a nurse by trade, so that’s actually how I came to get into the clinical research industry starting out as the study coordinator. I’ve done nearly every task on the site side from study coordinator, program development, business development to help managing the site. And then I kinda jumped over to the CRO world working with one of the top-rated CROs in oncology space, so thrilled to join Vial and bring my expertise to help expand oncology.
Simon Burns: And tell us more. You’ve seen the ins and outs of trials from every perspective. What are some of the key challenges in oncology trials that, you’ve seen firsthand? And what are you excited about in terms of how Vial can address those challenges?
Wendy Pinson: Sure. There’s been so many challenges over the years from every perspective. The main one that comes to mind is just aligning investigators and sponsors to the patient’s journey, you know, taking that protocol, breaking down the inclusion, exclusion criteria and identifying where in a patient’s healthcare experience they’ll best benefit from that therapy. I have already seen at Vial that we are building an extensive site network to ensure that we can meet all of the sponsor’s enrollment needs regardless of the challenges that comes along with that protocol.
Simon Burns: Awesome. And of course, we’re building a team that doesn’t just include you. Tell us more about the plans that you have for building out your team. We have some announcements coming soon. We don’t have to reveal those quite yet, but, we’d love to hear more about how you manage in building up the team to serve oncology sponsors.
Wendy Pinson: Absolutely. So, as you alluded to we’re currently building out our oncology team. We’ve just hired a specialized project manager. We have plans to hire an oncology medical monitor and a quality assurance personnel. At Vial we are determined to put the right staff in place to ensure we have a top-ranking oncology team with capabilities to surpass sponsor expectations. We’re not gonna settle for meeting their goals. We are going to surpass our sponsor goals.
Simon Burns: And speaking of that, if a sponsor is watching or listening here, how should they expect to hear more about Vial in the upcoming weeks and months? What type of engagement should they expect from us with this oncology sponsor community?
Wendy Pinson: Sure. Sponsor engagement is an integral of Vial’s mission to empower scientists to cure all human disease. We have a phenomenal business development team that’s working diligently to build-out a robust sponsor network. We’re confident that once the sponsors see Vial’s performance surpass their expectations, we’ll be able to assist them on many trials to come. Additionally, our clinical team is committed to ensuring that every sponsor experience is worth remembering. Historically, in our industry we tend to remember the negative experiences. We’re committed to producing and remembering the positive outcomes for our sponsors.
Simon Burns: All the sponsors we talk to, I’m sure they’re gonna go to you. Wendy, isn’t this just another CRO? What’s really so special? What’s really so different? What convinced you? What’s so different about the Vial model that you’re excited to bring back to sponsors?
Wendy Pinson: Yeah. So I worked directly and non-directly with many CROs across multiple therapeutic areas. I can assure you that Vial precedes all others. The culture at Vial is nothing short of amazing. The comradery amongst the various divisions, it’s superb. At the end of the day you can tell that we all share a common goal of advancing therapies for patients, and each and every Vial employee puts their heart and soul into that work.
Simon Burns: Well, thank you so much for taking the time this morning. It was a thrill chatting with you today and it’s a thrill to build-out this business unit together. I’m so excited to bring forward all of the technology and process towards sponsors and help them with their goals. Thank you so much, Wendy.
Wendy Pinson: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
