The clinical operations automation platform, Yendou, has raised a $1.3 million pre-seed round to accelerate the operational efficiency of clinical trials and slash the time it takes to develop new drugs in oncology. The funding round was led by us at b2venture, 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. 

Fixing stakeholder collaboration in clinical trials

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Since its launch in March 2023, Yendou has rapidly 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.

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"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.” 

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Zina Sarif is a trained clinical researcher in oncology with a PhD in biochemistry and industry experience at pharmaceuticals giant AstraZeneca. Together with her co-founder Patrick Rogg, a software engineer with experience at Amazon Web Services and Citadel, the Yendou team has built a product that addresses the challenges of clinical trials with a deep understanding of the problem. 

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Solving a major bottleneck in advancing groundbreaking new drugs

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Every year 41 million lives are lost to treatable diseases. On average it requires 12 years and $2 billion to introduce groundbreaking medicine to the market. The selection of clinical sites alone contributes to a third of the time it takes to conduct a clinical trial. Numerous pharmaceutical companies continue to rely on highly manual processes, using spreadsheets and various software products to collect and manage clinical data. A significant challenge arises from the lack of seamless communication between these tools. When essential information about an employee or clinic changes in one system, manual updates are often required in other products, and in many cases, this does not occur.

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Yendou’s unique business model addresses the overlooked issue of clinic recruitment in cancer clinical trials, a critical factor often overshadowed by patient recruitment concerns. “Choosing the right clinic is crucial for patient recruitment success,"  according to Zina. “Yendou empowers pharmaceutical companies with data to efficiently select the best clinics for their trials.”

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“We were impressed by the entire Yendou team and their ability to immediately generate market traction,” says 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.”

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