Software start-up specialises in taking the trial out of clinical trials

Mats Forsgren and Tom Beaufoy are the brains behind Clindox, a software start-up specialising in applications for the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. In particular, Clindox has developed a product that helps companies capture data from clinical trials more easily, efficiently and cost effectively.

Despite huge advances in technology, paper is still widely used to record trial results and the partners set up Clindox to develop a niche product to replace it. “My father had a business (also called Clindox) that designed and printed the case report forms,” Forsgren says. “I had worked with him as an adviser and always wondered why his clients still printed forms rather than using a computer application.

Forsgren began looking into the “why” and discovered that existing software solutions were both complex and expensive. As a result paper was the more cost-effective option for small trials.

He identified this niche as a potential new business opportunity but "parked" the idea until 2013 when he joined the DIT Hothouse New Frontiers Programme and began working on the idea full time. Prior to setting up Clindox he was global sales director for a London-based software company.

Originally from Sweden, Forsgren moved here with his Irish-born wife three years ago. His background is in business development, and during his career he has been involved in both setting up and turning businesses around. He was a co-founder of a financial courier company subsequently bought by the Royal Mail.

“What differentiates Clindox is the fact that our product is very user-friendly and costs considerably less to use,” he says. “It is also very easy to learn, the set-up is faster and there is no need for any installation. It is web-based and secure, and we provide 24/7 support. Our product provides an end-to-end solution for creating, editing, conducting and monitoring clinical trials that also enables our clients to interrogate data as well as exporting it to third party systems.

Remote users can capitalise on the use of mobile technology, collating data while with a subject and recording it in real time directly to their database,” Forsgren says.

Clindox sells directly to customers, and users can choose between a pay per report option or an annual licence fee. Forsgren says the annual fee, which allows an unlimited number of reports to be generated, is particularly suited to companies looking to create a central database for content.

The company's potential target audience is global, and Forsgren estimates that only between 5 per cent and10 percent of its revenues will come from Ireland. The product has recently been "soft" launched in Sweden and the company's first Irish customer has just come on board. Its next target is the UK where Tom Beaufoy is based. Forsgren estimates that software support for clinical trials is worth about $1 billion a year and growing at a rate of about 18 per cent per annum. Forsgren says investment in Clindox to date is around €400,000 split between private funding and support from Enterprise Ireland under its high potential start-ups programme. The firm employs five, including two in India where the initial software has been developed.

While there are already some big players in the same space as Clindox, Forsgren believes his company has the advantage of being new, nimble and first to market with its product. “What’s out there is built on older technology, it’s really expensive and it’s not easy to use. In addition, it wouldn’t be easy for them to suddenly change their model to copy ours.”