On average it requires 12 years and $2 billion to introduce groundbreaking medicine to the market. The most expensive and time-consuming process of new drug development is clinical trials as the choice of sites is estimated to account for a third of the time it takes to conduct a clinical trial. Several pharmaceutical companies continue to rely on highly manual processes, often those involving spreadsheets and a fragmented landscape of software products, to collect and manage clinical data. Manual updates are often required downstream when data changes in one system, and in many cases, this doesn’t happen.
Resolving these challenges, Berlin-based Yendou, a clinical operations automation platform has secured $1.3 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by b2venture (backed DUDE CHEM and AI21 Labs), with support from Heartfelt, Infinite Fund, and several angel investors from the pharmaceutical industry, including Meri Beckwith, co-founder of the new CRO challenger Lindus Health.
Yendou will use the investment to accelerate the operational efficiency of clinical trials and slash the time it takes to develop new drugs in oncology.
First-of-its-kind CRM in the sector
Yendou was founded in early 2023 by Zina Sarif, a trained clinical researcher in oncology with a Ph.D. in biochemistry and industry experience at pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, and Patrick Rogg, a software engineer with experience at Amazon Web Services and Citadel.
The company has built a product that addresses the challenges of clinical trials with a deep understanding of the problem. Its business model addresses the overlooked issue of clinic recruitment in cancer clinical trials, a critical factor often overshadowed by patient recruitment concerns.
Designed as the first customer relationship management (CRM) tool in the area of research and development, Yendou helps clinical operations teams accelerate and scale site selection to activation timelines for oncology clinical trials globally.
Speeds up clinical trials
Yendou has gathered attention and adoption from over 1,200 clinicians in 46 countries. This demand underscores the platform’s global appeal and efficacy. Following this success, Yendou opened its platform to pharmaceutical companies in a closed beta offering. This offering enables pharmaceutical and biotech companies to connect, select, and onboard clinical trial sites for Phase II and Phase III oncology trials seamlessly.
“We like to think of ourselves as Salesforce for R&D teams in life sciences, offering a unique value proposition by providing a curated pool of qualified clinical leads at their fingertips,” said Yendou CEO and co-founder Zina Sarif. “We are creating a knowledge automation platform for clinical researchers to eliminate repetitive work, empowering teams to consolidate information and accelerate the pace of clinical trials delivery to clinics.”
“We were impressed by the entire Yendou team and their ability to immediately generate market traction,” added Johanna Junkermann, Investment Manager at venture capital firm b2venture. “Her deep understanding of the problem, coupled with an extensive network in the industry, positions her and her team uniquely to lead the charge in creating a category-defining product for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.”
