Blockchain

Interview with Neill Barron, Director of Clinical Data Analytics at ClinTex

Neill Barron, Director of Clinical Data Services at Clintex will be discussing in this interview with TechBullion, how the Clintex CTi will significantly lower the cost of new medicines, whilst also increasing their speed of delivery to market for the people that need them with the help of Blockchain technology.

1) Could you please tell us about yourself?

I started out in the Pharma industry in 1995, working in data management of clinical trials. As I took on more senior positions in pharma,  I have witnessed clinical trials being delayed and failing due to issues that could have been avoided or predicted. I am motivated by a desire to change that.  Worldwide right now, there are >40,000 active clinical trials…hidden in there are breakthrough treatments that can save lives. It is an honour to be a part of a company that can help speed up clinical trials and get medicines to patients faster. On a personal note, I am very much family orientated, spending all my free time with my wife and 3 kids, managing to squeeze in a round of golf every few weeks!

2) What is ClinTex?

ClinTex is a solution provider to the Pharmaceutical Industry, and will revolutionise how clinical trials are conducted by providing a platform to optimise Operational Efficiency, Clinical Data Quality and Medical Review of clinical trial data. This will reduce development costs and increase speed to market of new medicines for the global pharmaceutical industry.

3) What inspired you to start building a collaboration platform for clinical trials for the pharmaceutical industry?

Simply put, pharma companies can learn from each other to develop and get medicines to patients faster. Realising the predictability of clinical trial issues, the question I asked myself was “How powerful would it be if one pharmaceutical company conducting a clinical trial could learn from another who has already conducted a clinical trial in the same disease area?”. Clintex CTi will allow that collaboration, whilst protecting commercial sensitivity. Very powerful predictive insights will be built up for use across the industry to more efficiently design and conduct clinical trials – learning from each other for the benefit of all.

4) What are some of the problems you see with clinical trials for drug development that are conducted right now?

Delays – a new a promising medicine can take 10 to 15 years to get to the patient.  The sources of these delays are many, and the CTi platform will help them to be detected and prevented.

Cost – It now costs >$2.5 billion to get a drug to market – that cost gets passed onto the patient. Using CTi will help reduce costs, helping deliver medicines not just faster, but cheaper

5) How will ClinTex change how clinical trials are conducted?

Pharmaceutical companies struggle to identify issues in a timely manner during the running of a clinical trial – the later issues are detected, the bigger the cost impact and delay. CTi will not only allow faster detection of clinical trial issues, but will take it one step further, and allow their prediction. This will ensure that clinical trial efforts are focused on prevention rather than “after the fact” correction. This can and will have huge impacts on clinical trial efficiency.

6) How will blockchain technology help the ClinTex accomplish these things?

Blockchain Technology offers the ideal solution for the CTi platform by addressing a number of key requirements for this type of a tool operating in a critical and regulated industry.

For example, audit trails are a required procedure and control for all clinical data. The FDA and other regulatory authorities need to be able to verify the quality and integrity of the data and a pharmaceutical company must, in accordance with Good Clinical Practice (GCP), record all changes to the data, who made the changes and when. A blockchain ledger is the perfect record keeping tool because it does exactly that. With the CTi platform, data and changes to data can be stored immutably. This allows the platform to evolve from a visualisation and analytics tool, to a workflow management tool that maintains transparency while automatically providing audit trails of actions taken. Also, the immutable nature of the blockchain allows the complete history of clinical data views to be stored on a blockchain. This will facilitate the creation and evolution of powerful machine learning algorithms that increase in accuracy over time.

Blockchain technology also offers the ability to perform the secure execution of contracts and payments based on triggers and milestones in the clinical data. For example, a payment to a doctor conducting a clinical trial can be automatically triggered as pre-set milestones are reached based on data entered and verified.

Furthermore, as a blockchain can operate seamlessly across diverse systems and data formats, this allows for the calculation and storing of CTi metrics across multiple clinical trials, whatever the source. The result is further refinement of algorithms and the creation of a perpetual learning platform that allows for powerful predictive analytics.

In summary, the CTi Platform offers a secure, confidential and incorruptible way to share clinical data and clinical analytics across traditional organisational barriers during clinical trials.

7) Can you tell us more about the technology and components of the ClinTex that make it function?

The CTi platform is based on an evolving CTi Data Model that unites the various sources of clinical data into a performance focused data structure, allowing analytics and machine learning to be applied to deliver valuable insights. This data model is the foundation for powering the 7 decentralised applications, each covering a separate and important aspect of clinical trials, and allowing the visualization of data to drive efficiency in clinical trials. For more information, check out our whitepaper, litepaper and technical paper on www.clintex.io.

8) Besides significantly reducing costs borne by the pharmaceutical industry, which other benefits and advantages does your platform offer? What other reasons would make them want to switch to your platform?

Yes, it is not just about cost. It is also about efficiency – getting new medicines to patients faster. This is the main motivation for us at ClinTex…we want to make a difference to people.

From an industry perspective, the CTi platform will drive down the cost of clinical trials and protect patient safety with a cost effective solution and an attractive pay-per-use model.

9) What are some of the detractors associated with your platform and how do you intend to remedy it?

Our platform is unique. The sources of clinical data to support clinical trials are numerous and exist in silos across a pharmaceutical organisation. Furthermore, as clinical data gets updated, existing data gets overwritten. These two features limit existing software to focusing on specific types of clinical data (a unidimensional approach) and to only work off of the latest copy of data, overlooking the history and evolution of that data. Therefore, unlike CTi, current systems are limited in their ability to unify data sources for a complete end to end picture of clinical trial performance, and, without a complete and immutable history of clinical data, cannot perform predictive analytics and machine learning. With CTi being first to market with a blockchain powered analytics solution for clinical trials, we are very excited about the future. Our remedy to detractors is to deliver what we say and to create a valuable business delivering benefit to all.

10) How does ClinTex’s CTI token offer integral and functional value to your ecosystem? Why is it necessary?

The CLX token will primarily be used for access to the CTi platform in a stake-per-licence model – the user will send their CLX to the CTi integrated wallet and their CLX tokens will then remain staked on the platform the duration of the licence (12 months).

This is an integral part of creating an eco-system for CTi – through the use of CLX it is envisioned CTi will form its own micro-economy which will allow ClinTex to keep the cost of using the platform down.

Through the staking-per-licence model combined with ClinTex’s marketing efforts as the 7 Core DApps are rolled out, the aforementioned reducing supply is expected to drive value in the CLX token, which will allow the ClinTex stakeholders to be rewarded that way when their tokens are released to them through the build and development phases of the project.

As ClinTex’s ultimate mission is to drive down the cost of medicine, we believe that the use by CTi of its own native token to repay the stakeholders and keep costs of R&D down for medicine development is a distinct advantage over a traditional model, where the stakeholders costs would be added to the R&D and ultimately drive up price for the end consumer of the medicine.

11) How much do you intend to raise in the ClinTex Token Sale and what are the steps for contributing?

To raise funds for the development of the CTi platform and on-going marketing of the CTi proposition, ClinTex will run a token generation event (commonly referred to as an “ICO”) during Q4, 2018.

From the token generation event (“TGE”), ClinTex will seek to raise $19m USD through the sale of ‘CLX’ tokens, which will be the native token for the CTi platform and the token through which the user will access the 7 CTi Applications

Latest information and steps to contributing is available at www.clintex.io

12) What’s going to happen to ClinTex after the token sale concludes and where do you see things in 5 years?

The CTi platform will be initially deployed in academic clinical trials in a research collaboration with our strategic partner, Intellimed. These initial deployments will establish the CTi concept in live clinical trial settings and help to further refine the predictive algorithms using new sources of data. After these clinical trial deployments, use in larger scale Phase III clinical trials will be achieved through a free-trial offering, funded using reserved tokens, for 2-3 large pharma organisations.The value delivered in these deployments will be used to solidify the CTi concept, and benefits realised will be a natural driver for future deployments. ClinTex see their main customer base as being large pharmaceutical companies running large clinical trials on new medicine e.g. GlaxoSmithkline, Pfizer, Novartis. We are confident that the powerful product offering and favorable licensing propositions offered by ClinTex will drive rapid and widespread uptake of the CTi platform in the industry, with first revenue generation in 2020

13) What are your marketing and sales strategies to achieve that?

While ClinTex acknowledges that the cryptocurrency and blockchain asset market is experiencing a correction currently, which is impacting on ICO raise figures from the retail investor sector, it is envisioned that a vigorous marketing and awareness campaign will drive early and sustained adoption of CTi in the pharmaceutical industry.

The uniqueness of the CTi proposition and ClinTex’s genuine and critical use of blockchain technology to solve a real-world problem for patients and the pharmaceutical industry, will put the CTi proposition significantly above the average pitch in the ICO space. The CTi licensing model will give pharmaceutical companies flexibility and cost effectiveness in adopting the CTi platform, and ensure that CTi outperforms any potential competitor in terms of both functionality and costs.

14) Do you have more information for our readers?

We are so proud of the team we have to realize the full potential of the CTi platform and to make a difference in the world. The ClinTex team combines top talent and leading thinkers from the pharmaceutical and clinical trial industry, with extensive experience from software, blockchain and data analytics expertise.

Our pharmaceutical and clinical expertise will ensure that we develop a platform that is focussed on the exact needs of clinical trial sponsors and patients. The seniority of our expertise in this area also provides ClinTex with valuable links to the industry for initial and free trial deployments.

We believe that this extensive clinical experience, combined with expertise in software development, blockchain technology and business development is the perfect recipe for success.

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