PM360 named our own CEO, Victoria Donovan, one of the 2022 ELITE 100 in the Entrepreneur category. The PM360 Elite Awards are presented to healthcare’s most influential people, who are driving results. Awardees are, as PM360 explains, “the industry’s most powerful minds and are the ones responsible for designing the future of healthcare.” So, it’s no surprise our CEO was awarded a spot in the Entrepreneur category.
Victoria Donovan founded Clinically Media to support sponsors and researchers, in Colorado and nationwide, to advance science and help people everywhere. Now more than ever, the life science industry is quickly expanding, particularly in Colorado. In the first quarter of 2021 alone, the life science companies in Colorado raised around $704 million and became “the tenth-largest U.S. life sciences market in the U.S.” And clinical research is the crucial phase in creating a new treatment. In the U.S., there are four phases in the drug development process. In Phase III, the study drug is tested on 300 – 3,000 patients. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, approximately only 25% to 30% of drugs make it past Phase III. According to a University of Pennsylvania study, around 86% of clinical trials do not reach their patient enrollment timelines. Victoria Donovan strives to not only improve these numbers, making sponsors and researchers’ lives easier, but also to advance medicine through clinical research.
Within the patient recruitment and retention space, there’s still a lot of work to do in destigmatizing clinical research and building accessible and diverse clinical trials. Victoria, alongside the Clinically Media team, is championing innovative solutions to do just that, meeting enrollment goals to further medical research and improve patients’ lives. As a patient recruitment and retention agency, Clinically Media connects thousands of patients of all identities with groundbreaking, new therapies.
By keeping patients at the heart of Clinically Media’s mission, Victoria is also able to support the many hardworking biopharma professionals to further medical research. That’s what drives Victoria and the Clinically Media team, figuring out how to connect patients and clinical research sponsors. For example, when faced with the issue of making clinical trials accessible to all, Victoria established a partnership with Uber Health. Now, Clinically Media’s clients and patients are able to provide and receive transportation to and from clinical trial appointments with ease. Clinically Media is continuously working towards improving accessibility to clinical trials, learning more about diversity and inclusion, and expanding efforts and impact.
"I see my role in the pharmaceutical space as an opportunity to break down the barriers to clinical trials — bringing a new perspective to clinical studies and connecting patients of all backgrounds and identities who may benefit the most to potentially groundbreaking treatments. Participants in clinical research are pivotal players in bringing new drugs to patients, and it’s important to me that that information is communicated through thoughtful, authentic messaging to reach high-quality patients."
Constantly reflecting on how she can make everyone’s experience in drug development more pleasant, Victoria is a creative problem-solver. For clinical trial participants, she aims to make their experiences simple and positive from the time they discover a trial until their end of study visit.
For biotech companies, she strives to expand upon ways to reduce their workload and decrease timelines on their projects. Victoria is continually evolving the software and services Clinically Media offers to provide the most valuable product to patients and industry professionals to make the greatest impact, leading to more medical advancements and more patients served.
Victoria’s steadfast commitment to improving diversity, supporting women, and furthering medical research are a few of the many reasons she was named one of PM360’s ELITE 100 this year. Learn more about this year’s award winners here, read Victoria’s profile here, and check out the press release here.
