See the pitch deck that clinical-trial firm Castor used to raise $45M

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This entrepreneur thinks computer simulations could replace human drug-trial participants by 2035. See the pitch deck that helped his startup raise $45 million.

"For investors, direct paper replacement doesn't resonate," Arts said."We have a vision that extends way beyond the current paradigm of clinical trials."

Drug companies have used data to create virtual trial participants. But in most cases, it's used to replace the placebo patients — the people who don't get a drug —The company has more than 100 employees. Arts said Castor plans to have between 250 and 300 employees by the end of 2022.Derk Arts started Castor as a solution to a problem he was facing during his medical training and research: effectively capturing patient data.

Digitizing clinical trials can help them run faster and more efficiently, according to Castor. The company says its software cut the time for getting the first patient started in a trial by 60%.The World Health Organization used Castor's software last year to test four possible COVID-19 treatments internationally.The study, called the Solidarity Trial, examined how Gilead Sciences' remdesivir and the controversial drug hydroxychloroquine performed against the coronavirus.

Castor's long-term plan is to use the data it collects to become a leader in computational clinical trials, where human participants are replaced by or augmented with virtual "patients" created by computers based on data from all of the trials Castor is now running.To do that, Castor will need to grow its database and use tools like artificial intelligence and machine learning to weed out poor quality data.

Arts said Castor will stand out from competitors by building greater technological capacity that will allow it to capture more data."What I see is a lot of tech that can claim to do a lot of things, but only for small number of customers at high price," Arts said.

 

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