Kim Walpole - Co-Founder & CEO of Trials.ai

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And welcome back to the Tacos and Tech Podcast. I'm your host, Neal Bloom. I am here at Nest, coworking at their new podcast studio and we are joined by Kim Walpole, CEO and co founder of Trials AI. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me excited.

So tell us a little bit about what Trials is cool.

So Trials is developing frontier technology that basically helps research teams develop their clinical trial protocols. And protocols are basically the playbook for how you're going to run your trial.

Okay, that was great. That was your pitch. We're done pitching.

That's it.

Now we can chat. Okay, Kim, you haven't always been in San Diego, so I want to get to know that story. What led you here a little bit? Where'd you grow up?

Grew up actually was born in the Bronx, New York, and my mom was pretty much a gypsy and so ended up traveling quite a bit as I grew up. And then I would call New York City home. That's where my family is, and all that good stuff. And met my husband and decided to take one for the team and move out to San Diego.

Got it. So you and Tom met in New York?

We actually met. I was on a business trip out here.

Okay.

And yeah. Met out here, became friends. It was great. And then it was kind of one of those, all right, if we're gonna get serious, who's gonna move? And I was like, oh, well, I guess I'll just have to do that.

Got it. Pretty cool. I have family roots in the Bronx as well. My mom was born on 165th.

Awesome. So I was in Fremont.

Grand concert.

Fun.

Cool. So you come to San Diego. What year was that that you showed up here?

Oof. At the end of 2010.

Okay, so semi recent last decade now, since this will be coming out in 20. 20.

Okay.

10 years ago. What was before you came here, though? You were in the biotech space, right?

I actually had another company and was consulting pharma, you know, and things like that. So. Yeah.

So you knew San Diego already as, like, a hub for pharma biotech?

Yep, for sure.

Did you know much about it as a tech community before moving here?

Oh, good question. Not so much. I wouldn't say, you know, that San Diego was. Yeah, in my mind, as a big tech community. I would have thought of it much more as a bio kind of community.

Okay, but how'd you get into the pharma space?

Oh, so I started. Let me think. I gotta think back. I was working for the American Management association, so started there building corporate universities and things like that, and then ended up going out on my own, was working with a couple of customers that were like, well, we think we would like to work with you outside of this context. And so started my first company there and loved it, you know, I really, really did. It was like 12 years doing things that I loved, and then, you know, working on process improvement and organizational development, things like that. And then my best friend Paul gets diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And frankly, had been visiting out here in San Diego. He was living in New York at the time and left here with a stomachache. Went into the doctor back home with a stomachache. Came out with basically five months to live. And, man, at that point, it was kind of one of those. He gives me a call, lets me know what's going on, and essentially said, there's no treatment. Can you get me into a clinical trial. So at that time, you know, I guess it was a shock and I was thinking, I know people, so of course I'm going to be able to get them in, you know, to a trial. And then unfortunately, you know, talking to different folks at academic institutions and industry folks, they were like, honestly, there's a couple of promising treatments, but by the time we get them trial ready, he's going to be gone. So that was, yeah, I would say that was definitely one of those pivotal times in life where you just go, okay, what am I doing? Why am I doing it and what should I be doing?

Yeah, that's incredible. What time frame was that?

Oh, gosh, that was about four years ago now. Four or five years ago now.

So that was the impetus for trials. AI Totally. Though a different name at the time when you first started.

Yes.

Okay.

So we started as. I know I get kind of embarrassed saying it. I'm like, we all had those. We started out actually building a. Trying to solve the same problem, but building a different technology. So we started out as Catalyst ctms, Catalyst Clinical. I think actually even before then. And we were building technology to help research teams execute, like, run the clinical trials themselves. And then as we, I think startups are, want to do, you know, you're suddenly like, okay, we're solving this problem, but maybe we're looking at it the wrong way. And it wasn't until last year that we really started to see as we were executing on these trials using this other technology, we were like, every single time we were having problems in the trial, we found that it was directly related to the protocol. So it was like garbage in, garbage out. And we couldn't fix things in the trial necessarily because these protocols had been poorly designed. And so that was a wake up call for us, you know, and scary. You know, pivoting is a really scary thing to do, especially when you've invested time and people's money and all that stuff. Totally.

And you're like so mission driven, saying, you know, we're changing people's lives. Like, we know just North Star.

Yes.

Can you explain real quick just what protocol is? Just because we have a more tech driven audience.

Yes, for sure. So it's like, you know, if you are a, I guess thinking of a sports analogy, oh God, I'm going there. And it's scary if you're a, you know, you're playing football, you have this playbook and it's how you're going, you know, like the plays that you're going to Execute on, hopefully to win. And that's very much the way that a clinical trial protocol is. It's who gets to participate, who's not participating, what instruments are we going to use, what hospitals will we use, what do the trial interactions look like, and how often do we have to interact with patients. And yeah, all of that. It's a pretty lengthy document that actually has to be signed off on by regulatory bodies to say, yes, this is a safe approach, or we think that this is a safe approach for your clinical trial.

Got it. Okay. And so at first you were gonna solve clinical trials in general. Right. You're gonna bring tech to it, automate it. And now with protocol design upfront, it's more. We're gonna, we're gonna help you build that playbook, that make sure that you have a successful clinical trial all the way through. So you're more upfront in that design.

Right. It's a different approach to the same problem. So before we were in trial execution, now we're in trial planning.

Got it. Okay, so what's the reception been like since you made that pivot wild?

So you're pushing uphill and you're trying to get folks to adopt your technology. And so I went to friends at Big Pharma and was like, hey, look at my baby. You know, they were like, I hate to say it, but your baby might not be so pretty. And essentially they were saying, look, we've got technologies that we've been using for years. Nobody's ever been fired for implementing Oracle or one of these other systems. And I started talking about this kind of idea that I was having around this protocol problem. And as soon as I started talking about that, it was suddenly this kind of change in the atmosphere where people were going, wait, how do you. Wait, how would you do something like that? And, oh, wow. Well, we actually have corporate initiatives internally that align with protocol optimization and things like that. And if you were to go in that direction, there's Greenfield. And frankly, when I started to look into it, it was really interesting for me because our biggest competitors are consultants that certainly can use our technology, but it was like consultants using templates and Microsoft Word. And so it was really interesting.

I mean, I think you're downplaying a little bit of the technology behind what you guys have built out. Can you talk a little about the AI aspect that comes to it?

Sure, sure. So we are using natural language processing, natural language understanding. We are consuming massive amounts of clinical trial related information, turning that into data. We are developing our own clinical trials Proprietary ontology. So essentially it's like, okay, this ontology lets us get really granular in terms of understanding all of the documents we've consumed and then from there again we're turning those into data so that we can provide recommendations and insights, taking a more data centric approach to what has been done historically, what's been successful, what's not marrying that historic information with forward thinking stuff that key opinion leaders are talking about. How can we incorporate things like smart injectors, IoT devices, telemedicine to make this process of running a clinical trial and all of the folks that have to engage in that process, how do we make it easier for them?

Okay. Oh, interesting. It's almost like serving up solutions for people who would be running the trial on maybe less sophisticated technology, saying you can actually do it better.

Right. I often think of it like there's no way that any one human or even a group of humans can traverse the massive amounts of information that are out there related to clinical trials and synthesize that. And you know, essentially we're serving it up to them. And we think of this technology as like the best second opinion a research team could ever have. Because of course, we certainly believe that, you know, these, these research teams have the knowledge and the critical thinking skills and things that technology hasn't yet caught up to. So essentially it's here are the recommendations. You can accept or reject them, and if you reject them, enter in new data and the system continues to get smarter as it's being used.

Got it. Really cool. Along the way you've really leaned in and used a lot of the resources available here to you in San Diego. Right. Being in Evo Nexus. NextCubed, tell us a little about some of the, the process of going through incubators and accelerators like those.

Sure. So I really love San Diego. I think coming from New York, there's a different paradigm that people, I guess, approach this whole startup kind of experience with and sometimes there's inclusivity there, but I think a lot of times it's don't get in my sandbox kind of thing versus my experience here in San Diego, which is much more inclusive. And hey, there are a lot of different resources that are available to you and I think engagement was easier in my opinion. So we got into EVO Nexus. We had some great mentorship there. Of course, we had office space and it was really exciting to incubate there. We had a lot of idea generation and also just learning from. I love that the EVO Nexus experience at the time there were so many different types of companies, yet many of us were using similar technologies or looking to use similar technologies. So it was really cool to kind of go, okay, you're applying this in fintech or some other industry and how can we apply that and vice versa. So that was cool. Also kind of basic things like receiving funding from people here. We've been very fortunate.

It's very nice.

Yeah, I'm a proud investor, by the way. Thank you. Thank you for saying that. No, it's been cool. We've got angel investors here in San Diego, we've got VCs. Sway and Thiel are also hopefully happy, happy investors. It's really interesting for us because we're close and we can leverage those resources. So beyond the financial implications, which are great, it's who can we connect you with? And so that's pretty exciting for us, I think.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

It's the beginning of the year, which means it's JPM season and depending on when this episode went live, maybe it already happened. So you could, who knows. But you've been to JPM many times.

I'm sure I have.

Knowing that recording beforehand. What are you looking forward to going into that conference? Jpm, by the way, is the JP Morgan biotech life sciences bonanza.

It is, yeah.

It is like the CES of the biotech world, right?

Yeah, I think that's a good analogy. What's interesting is, you know, everybody calls it JP Morgan, but then Bio Week has now attached itself and there's this whole ecosystem that's been built around, you know, JP Morgan. Most startups aren't invited to jpm, so you don't actually go to.

Oh, you don't sit in the conference. You just go and sit in lobbies.

Of hotels basically during the day and then at night you network like crazy and you know, if you're smart, you set up meetings with folks that you wouldn't normally have access to. So a 45 minute flight, you know, to San Francisco now gives you access to folks that are coming from all over the world. And so that's always really exciting for us because it's not just the pharma companies, it's potential partners. It's, you know, folks that are industry thought leaders speaking at these different events that kind of come alongside jpm. And that's always fun for us to get a sense for what's going on out in the ecosystem. What are people talking about, what are investors excited about? Tons of investor meetings during that time is always great. I'm Actually going to be speaking on a panel through NextCube talking about Frontier technology, digital health, kinds of things. So pretty excited about that. Yeah, it's a great time. It always really exciting.

Is it pretty split in your mind talking to both potential investors and potential customers or is there one more than the other?

I think my focus right now it depends on my focus at the time. We're gearing up to raise a round of funding in Q1, so we're setting up some meetings and follow up meetings and things like that with folks. We've already talked to a couple new folks, but you know, kind of circling up with folks that have been along on our journey. And so I would say this time it's probably a little bit more investor heavy, but because I am who I am, I can't not talk to customers. It's like, these are my people.

So dilutive capital. Absolutely.

So super excited about that. Have some really good meetings set up.

Okay. Really exciting. So that's January. What does the rest of 2020 look like?

We just closed a big deal with the tier one pharma company. So congratulations. Thank you. Super excited about that. And so we've been heads down in execution mode, you know where it's always funny to me as you're going through this process of like you think, okay, we just closed maybe some funding and so we're, we can get heads down in execution, but it never really kind of works out that linearly. It's always like, oh wait, we just closed this. Yay. And then suddenly the next thing comes up and you're focused on that. So it's big push on executing on this deal that we're super excited about. And then we've got several others that are in the pipeline. So March is going to be a really heavy customer time for us. And hopefully this just kind of this year feels like there's a ton of momentum. You know, I think once you close a big deal with any, you know, notable company, it's like suddenly everybody gets really excited, like, hey, what are you doing over there? Yeah, the heads pop up, you know, and everybody's asking questions. So it's a fun time for us to kind of figure out what is the trajectory in terms of our customer, you know, I guess acquisition, you know, what is that going to actually look like?

Well, it's great momentum going into JP Morgan, being on a panel, then raising money and then close some new deals. Right. Sounds like a great 2020.

It's a really good 2020.

You've got your plan for the year. Your playbook.

Exactly.

Well, you guys recently relocated to the office, to downtown or back to downtown at Downtown Works, which I get to see you guys a lot more often, which is great. How's it been being back downtown?

Well, our guys are thrilled and so that's always been the goal. They're like, we're a tech company. Even though we live in the life science world, we straddle that world. And Downtown Works was, I think, a really good choice for us because it still allowed us to be part of the ecosystem while having our own office and kind of graduating from desks somewhere into, hey, we've got an office and we're working together and yet we still have access to the ecosystem. Folks that are doing exciting things in other areas and kind of leveraging those minds, I guess, periodically. So that's cool.

That's great. Well, I know I run into guys on the street having some food truck Wednesdays.

Yes.

Do you have any other kind of favorite spots you've found? Maybe some favorite taco places nearby?

Oof. Favorite taco places. That's a good question. I think for me maybe not tacos necessarily nearby because any place that ends with an airtoes is good for me.

Absolutely.

So I'm good there. But yeah, we spend a lot of time in Little Italy eating a lot of Italian food.

It's dangerous being walking distance nuts, but it's great. Yeah. You a big coffee drinker too?

Definitely. We spend a good amount of time over at Lofty, so walking over there, grabbing a coffee, talking while we walk, you know, and kind of coming back. And I would like to think we're clearing our heads, but really we're just caffeining ourselves right up so we can get things done.

Yeah. Well, Kim, it's great to hear the story. Really, really excited about the trajectory what you guys are on right now. Thanks. Best of luck at JPMorgan.

Thank you.

In case this episode already aired before then, you did great.

Tell future Kim that it's going to be amazing.

Where can people find you on social media and trials? AI.

Yeah. So you can find us on Twitter, trialsai, LinkedIn, trialsai. That's probably the places that we're most active right now. Yeah.

Okay.

Come on over.

We'll make sure we have them in the show notes too, but thanks, Kim. Cool, Keep it up.

Thank you.

Thanks for joining us on the Tacos and tech podcast with Neil Bloom. Thanks again to Cox Business for helping make this product possible by expanding the reach of the San Diego tech ecosystem. Big shout out to School of rap for our rad intro music. And thanks as well to Nest Podcast Network where we are recording live inside their studio at Nest Co working in Bankers Hill. You can find Neil Bloom on Twitter neilbloom as well as Fresh brewed Tech and tacos and Tech Pod on Twitter too.

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