Wessam Sonbol — From Personal Struggle to Global Impact

Speaker:🔬 Transforming Digital Health Through Decentralized Clinical Trial Innovation🔬

Speaker:Meet Wessam Sonbol, CEO of Delve Health, a pioneering force in digital health and decentralized trials. Leading a groundbreaking platform that supports clinical research in 65+ languages, Wessam is revolutionizing patient access to clinical trials through innovative integration of wearables, telehealth, and AI-powered solutions. His vision: making clinical research accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Speaker:At Delve Health, innovation meets impact. Our decentralized trial solutions have delivered transformative results: 30% reduction in patient dropout rates and 20% faster trial completion times. Driven by personal experience, Wessam\'s patient-first approach is reshaping how we conduct global clinical research, ensuring no patient faces the barriers his mother once did.

Speaker:A respected leader with 25+ years in healthcare technology and clinical research, Wessam brings unparalleled expertise in complex trial management and innovative platform development. Under his guidance, Delve Health is pioneering the future of decentralized trials, combining cutting-edge technology with deep patient understanding to accelerate the development of life-changing treatments.

Speaker:#DigitalHealth #DecentralizedTrials #HealthcareInnovation #ClinicalTrials #PatientCentric #HealthTech #ClinicalResearch

Speaker:\# I am Adam Walker, a biometrics consultant, and this is the Pharma Prescribed Podcast where leaders, innovators, and hidden voices in healthcare open up, no sound bites, no spin, just raw insight, one prescription at a time in an industry driven by data, protocols and pressure. We rarely pause to ask the human questions. What drives us, what breaks us, and what truths live behind the titles we wear at the helm of Delve Health. Wessam Sonbol is driving a revolution in decentralized and hybrid clinical trials.

Speaker:His platform supports studies in over 65 languages, enabling inclusive research across continents by integrating wearables, televisit, and AI driven tools. Delve Health has helped sponsors reduce patient dropout rates by up to 30% and accelerate trial timelines by 20%. Wessam\'s leadership spans more than 25 years in clinical research and healthcare technology.

Speaker:He\'s managed complex phase one to four trials for global giants, and his entrepreneurial journey includes founding clinical system consultants, scaling it across three continents, and developing platforms that achieved multimillion dollar efforts. Exit inspired by his personal experiences, Wessom fiercely committed to patient centricity.

Speaker:His innovation, simplified trial access and elevate outcomes. He\'s also co-developed Perter io, a data mining platform that connects clinical trials, publications, and drug pipelines using AI and NLP cutting research time by up to 40% for scientists and sponsors, whether it\'s through founding companies or building ecosystems.

Speaker:Wessam doesn\'t just follow the pulse of clinical research. He shapes it. Wessam, welcome to Pharma Prescribe.

Speaker 2: Thank you. I didn\'t know that you know that much about me.

Speaker:I\'m delighted that we can give you the platform today toreally talk about Delf Health and tell tell our audience a little bit more about yourself.

Speaker:How are you doing today?

Speaker 2: I\'m doing well. Thank you. Thank you for having me on.

Speaker:It\'s my absolute pleasure.

Speaker:So, first things first. For. The people out there that are listening that aren\'t aware of you, maybe you give us a little bit of background to yourself. Listen.

Speaker 2: Yeah. My name is cio. I\'m founder of Delve Health.

Speaker 2: Founded Delve Health a few years ago after a personal experience. My mom was a, cancer patient. She struggled to be part of a trial and it was interesting because it wasn\'t really that the science failed, it was more of the. The process, the system, the multiple drives, and all the paper jargons that go back and forth that, that really failed her.

Speaker 2: So we wanted to reshape things around. We wanted to make it more possible for patients like my mom and others that wanna be part of clinical trials that, struggle, simplify the process. So we founded Delve and, prior to Delve, did quite a bit on the consulting side of the world.

Speaker 2: This is what, clinical systems consultants really was Just, a bunch of consultants running around installing metadata rave everywhere, having fun. Prior to that developed d ctmd.com and, yeah, it\'s been a journey.

Speaker 2: Deve, today Delve, we\'re over 40 people, with offices in US, Belize, Egypt, and a hub in Pakistan. So we\'re trying to expand our arms a little bit show from a patient\'s centricity, how far and how fast our arms can go.

Speaker:That\'s amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that.

Speaker:And, if you don\'t mind me asking, how did you get into the industry in the very first place, taking a step back to your earlier days?

Speaker 2: It was by accident, graduated college. Didn\'t have a job. Somebody was working on something and I was like, Hey, do you wanna join? And I\'m like, sure, let\'s do it.

Speaker 2: And, lived outta my suitcase for about 10 months and the whole realm started with, developing a platform to collect data from EMR systems, more focused on cardiovascular disease, more focused on, from a marketing purposes. I think we were early at the time.

Speaker 2: 10 months later, 11 months later, we hashed the idea didn\'t work very well, that\'s when we developed tctmd.com. Then we developed a, global registry platform that was very focused on post-market studies. Actually everything, every single company that had a, some sort of a stent was, running a registry or a post-market study within our platform.

Speaker 2: That\'s how I got into the industry and. I\'ve been here ever since.

Speaker:Goodness. Well, there\'s an awful lot there to unpack, isn\'t there?

Speaker:So it sounds like your personal story has driven you more recent times, and where has that taken you and how has that personal drive taken your mom\'s health forward, if I can ask?

Speaker 2: Yeah. It\'s still here. Our passion is truly towards patients, we look around and we see patients like my mom everywhere struggling and you hear it left and right, you look at studies and on average, retention dropouts is 30 to 40% if you\'re lucky.

Speaker 2: Some studies are better than others, but when you talk about more complex ones, for example, when we do oncology studies. Oncology and Alzheimer\'s studies are really tough, for example, one of the things that we deployed with in Delve is we have our own concierge team, that\'s all they do all day long.

Speaker 2: They speak to patients all day long, they\'re on the phone, they speak to probably about 50 to 70 patients a day. We speak to 1500 to 2000 patients a week. And that\'s a lot of patients. So we hear real stories and it\'s interesting. And as we develop deve, deve is we\'re not just a platform, we\'re not a solution provider.

Speaker 2: We\'re here to truly deliver outcomes, truly deliver better compliance. As we listen to patients, we hear from them how busy they are, how sick they are, they need the help. So pushing out another diary or PRO is not really your final solution. There\'s a little bit more around it that we need to,

Speaker 2: provide patience. It\'s, at the end of the day, it\'s fruitful because the goal is as we deliver outcomes, we want these medications to get out to patients faster, save lives. That\'s really what we\'re here for, we\'ve, we\'ve expanded our, we\'re doing studies in the us, in Europe, in the Middle East because there are patients like my mom, everywhere in the world.

Speaker 2: Even, expanding our arms into running studies in Pakistan and things of that nature as well. So we\'re, we\'re seeing the impact. We\'re pushing forward and as we, as we bring down more people, it\'s part of, part of who we are, we ask people what is, your drive?

Speaker 2: Why do you wanna work for deve? The passion has gotta be there. \'cause quite frankly, if the passion is not there, we\'re not all gonna roll the same way. That\'s a lot more of where it\'s driving us. Patient centricity will always be core to who we are and what we do.

Speaker:So what are some of the biggest challenges you find in patient dropouts then?

Speaker:Is it their own experiences of these difficult drugs and compliance around that? Is it identifying where those clinical trials are? What is it? What is it? What are the reasons why people are dropping out or at least not even engaging with clinical trials?

Speaker 2: Yeah. There\'s a lot of frustration from patients, so it\'s an interesting mix.

Speaker 2: Some patients really wanna see a doctor. On some patients they live, we\'ve heard them multiple times that 70% of patients live at least two hours from the nearest clinic. Right. So we hear that frustration quite a bit as well, where, they don\'t have the capability to actually get to the doctor\'s office and when you get into electoral areas, there\'s gotta be something better that we can do.

Speaker 2: Right. So, if we\'re able to provide them. Tools. Wearable is, it\'s just a tool in the box, right? Just a tool in the box to kind of get the data better. But if we\'re able to reduce that barrier, that frustration, even when we push out ps we\'ve had a couple of trials where patients get frustrated because of how many times they actually have to respond to pros.

Speaker 2: We had one study, oncology study, patients had to respond to. Three diaries in one day, and that\'s oncology where you get patients that go into the hospital. But the patients that were part of the study, they were part of it because they really needed it. And at that point, it\'s not retention. It\'s really more compliance issues that we run into because you have someone that goes in.

Speaker 2: They got their chemo, they\'re home, they\'re sick, and when they get chemo, man, they\'re shot for a while. So for them to sit there and worry about responding to it, that is the last thing on their mind. So those are some of the challenges that we run into. And, and some of the ways that we overcome some of these challenges is sometimes we have to go back to the sponsor and say, Hey, listen, we\'ve gotta do, we\'ve gotta look back at the protocol.

Speaker 2: Either reduce their number of visits to the hospital, reduce the number of diary requests a day, like something has gotta give. On top of that, we deploy concierge capabilities, right? Where you have a concierge person, something didn\'t get done. Have someone give a call, right? Sites are not tech support.

Speaker 2: Sites are busy. We need to lend them a hand somehow, and, and see how we can support these patients at home. So there\'s a lot of challenges, we ship devices globally, so shipment can also be a challenge depending on where we want to go, what data we wanna collect.

Speaker 2: Clinical trials are d are difficult, they\'re tough. Our, our challenges with patients and, and dropouts are quite a bit.

Speaker:I can imagine, as you were talking about that, I was thinking also presumably going back in time through the pandemic and, and some of the challenges we had then. Now I\'m wondering whether or not those challenges have facilitated.

Speaker:Data collection since and perhaps an acceptance of ePRO and use of technology at home?

Speaker 2: It definitely has. I think the pandemic has helped push us forward. However, trying to all jump on the wagon of everything has gotta be decentralized, just is not realistic. We don\'t. I don\'t know that we\'ve had a study that is a hundred percent decent trials where everything is just at home, right?

Speaker 2: I think most of our studies are mostly hybrid of some sort, where at least the patient\'s gotta come in for the first and last visit, right? But those gotta be simple studies. Where, I mean, we\'ve got studies that have had four or five devices in these patients\' homes, right? So if you\'re giving them the devices in home, how do you facilitate and make sure that they\'re collecting the data?

Speaker 2: There\'s something called wear compliance, which is, is the patient wearing the device or not? Are we getting the data at the time or not? And thinking that we\'re give them the device and let it run is not realistic. You\'ve gotta have someone sitting there that watches it and, and make sure that, are you pushing the right reminders out, things of that nature.

Speaker 2: Right? But also giving size the capabilities to see, what have we had lately? What does the data look like on these devices? So while it has. Pushed us to where we are today. I think the need for even better tools, is even more prominent to, to where we are, right? So I think that those are some areas that I think people need to be careful about if you\'re truly trying to do a hybrid study.

Speaker 2: Just going to a PRO vendor and thinking of Hey, slap an API on your PRO and collect some Fitbit data or, or whatever. It\'s not as simple as that. In some studies it might be right, but, there are some controls that you gotta put around it, that\'s for sure. But also I think, honestly, this is, this is where innovation comes in.

Speaker 2: This is where. We all have to sit down and think what\'s working and what\'s not working, what\'s not working? Why is that not working? And it\'s it\'s like the story of our life, right? We\'re always, this is where we\'re always at, right? And, how can we do better? What else can we do? Some areas we can change and we can pivot and we can figure out here\'s how we can fix it.

Speaker 2: And in some situations it\'s just. It\'s a difficult situation, it\'s, there\'s a myriad of things.

Speaker:There must be a very hard balance between technology and healthcare at home effectively, is what you\'re describing, isn\'t it? Because if I think about personal experience within my family, you know, older generations are not necessarily as tech savvy.

Speaker:Some people struggle with using a mobile phone, nevermind. A medical device, which is effectively what we\'re saying, isn\'t it? You know, prescribing yourself at home or hooking into a particular medical device in a, in a home setting. I\'m curious to know how that concierge service actually works physically, because I\'m sure our listeners will be very interested to hear that you offer that service son.

Speaker:I\'d love to know what that looks and feels like if I\'m a patient, for example.

Speaker 2: Yeah. It comes in different flavors, quite frankly. I\'ll give you an example. So that, that oncology study that I was telling you about, we had, we deployed the concierge service where we, we did two things, one of which I.

Speaker 2: We told the patients, Hey, if you maintain compliance for 90 days, you get like a gift card. Right? So it\'s almost like a gamification type of deal. And that would, that was really amazing. But the other thing that we did ahead of that as well is we deployed our concierge team where if we\'re seeing patients that are, not compliance for some reason, pick up the phone, call the patient, and it\'s that empathy.

Speaker 2: Man, that just really was amazing. I remember one day I, and I think I, I kind of talked about it on LinkedIn, but I was literally in my office. It was four or five o\'clock I get on the phone. And, sorry, it\'s a bit, this lady, she\'s an older woman. Got cancer. And man, she felt so alone. Like my daughter literally like walks in and this lady\'s voice just like, was she almost like lit up over the phone?

Speaker 2: Right. And you can feel it over the phone that she was, she was lonely, she was tired, she was sick, that was probably one of the most heartfelt examples. That I will never forget. In another study, this was more of a cardiovascular study, one of the devices we\'re not getting data, every while, and then I\'ll pick up the phone.

Speaker 2: I want to hear from the patients as well, because I wanna learn, I wanna figure out how do we do this better as a company? So I called I called the guy. I said, Hey, this, this is so and so, we\'re not getting the data from your device. So I walked him through how we can have him reconnect the device and get the data.

Speaker 2: And at the end of the call and he is like, just so you know, I want you to know that the guy that you\'re talking to is a 90-year-old man that was able to get the device connected back up. And I, I didn\'t ask. Right. So he said it right from there. So, and we probably called this guy maybe only twice over a period of six months and we were getting data just perfectly fine.

Speaker 2: So I think the perception of people of certain ages. Are not tech savvy enough. I don\'t think that\'s accurate. I mean, my dad is 84 years old. He\'s got an Apple watch. He loves it. He looks at it all the time. Right? I actually feel like people that are. Ages 50 on up. They enjoy these technologies more because they wanna take care better care of themselves from a health perspective.

Speaker 2: We see it, right? Most people that we give them these tools, depending on the device, are like, well, can you gimme something that, can I see my step counts? Some sponsors, they just, they want everything just blinded. And I understand why. But patients ask for a little bit more. And I feel that from a patient perspective, if we\'re gonna ask them to do this, we need to give them a little bit something back, something of value that they can, it can resonate with them.

Speaker 2: Whether it\'s something in the. Watch, whether it\'s maybe a, a text message of Hey, you\'ve done amazing over the last, few days, keep it up. Things of that nature. So those are, ways that we can deploy our concierge service, right. Either to. Help follow up on a compliance aspect, make sure that we help support from a tech perspective.

Speaker 2: But even even as we ship out devices, globally, right? We need that help as well. So those are some of the areas where the support from a concierge perspective really helps push the needle a little bit.

Speaker:I love that. I, I love the fact that you, you, you make, you make reference to, to older people enjoying getting more information from their data because it\'s not something they\'ve always had at their disposal.

Speaker:Thinking about my own case in point, a couple of years ago, I went to my local doctor gp, as we call them, general practitioner in the uk. When I turned 50, I insisted on having full blood counts done because I kept hearing in various meetings and certainly on podcasts that I was listening to, that 50 is a stage gate to what\'s what your future self might look like.

Speaker:And it wasn\'t that I was terrified \'cause I don\'t think I\'d lived a bad life, but what I wanted to know was if there was anything I could do at 50 that would actually improve that longevity. 25, 30, hopefully years beyond. And there were a couple of things that came out of it that I found quite surprising that you would never know looking on the outside of me, that only would\'ve come from blood tests.

Speaker:And in the UK they stopped doing these tests on 50-year-old people, maybe in the last four or five years. So the example you gave of, the, the 90-year-old person managing to hook themselves up to the tech. That person clearly has a drive and a determination to live, way beyond their 90th year.

Speaker:And that\'s wonderful to hear. I\'m just wondering what other, what other insights you\'re seeing and clearly from a personal point of view, this is very personal to you with your mother\'s experience and I, I feel and sense the empathy coming through everything that you\'re saying and everything that you\'re doing.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: Sorry, there was something else on my mind so the other thing that we have to think about as well, so as we deploy solutions and capabilities, we\'ve gotta think about caregivers, right? So it\'s not just about the patient anymore. Like for example, that 90-year-old person, he had a caregiver at home.

Speaker 2: How can the caregiver actually look and see and get the same reminders of that patient that kind of help support them through their journey? \'Cause it truly is a journey, right? So thinking of the caregivers and making sure that we give them capabilities and tools is really important. We have, right before CVS exited the market, they selected us to be their, their vendor to help them run decentralized trials. But then they left. So part of that, we actually, deployed this tool where if you\'re sending nurses into these patients\' homes, you can actually schedule a nurse.

Speaker 2: Into that patient home through the system, thinking about hipaa, thinking about compliance.

Speaker 2: The nurse only needs to see this much of the patient data, only the visit that they\'re going in for. So there\'s like a lot of intricate pieces that we have to think about, and there\'s all these nuances that we don\'t have all the answers to.

Speaker 2: So when we run into these different situations, we have to sit down, think it\'s like, oh, I didn\'t think about that. Our sponsors have been amazing because they\'ve been driving us to figure out what else we need to think about, how can we get there? A lot.

Speaker 2: Sometimes it\'s interesting because saw it on LinkedIn yesterday and someone posted about, sometimes you have to think, step back and think, and it\'s not a weakness. It\'s actually, it\'s a tool, it\'s a driver for you to say maybe I need to pause for a little bit and figure out what have we done over the past six months to a year.

Speaker 2: What has worked and what hasn\'t worked, and figure out how can we do it better for the next three years? Technology is evolving so fast. The rules and regulations are changing every single day. I was talking to somebody yesterday and man, I just receive an email from.

Speaker 2: The president of the university and they\'re like, we have no idea what\'s gonna happen tomorrow. And we\'re getting this on a weekly basis. Right. So chose, the kind of environment that we\'re all living in right now. So it\'s been an interesting couple of years.

Speaker 2: COVID has COVID, was great because I think it truly shifted our thinking. But I think now as we\'re getting back into real life, the real struggle is on, you\'ve seen it with all the layoffs and studies on hold and pause, et cetera. Been interesting.

Speaker:Yeah, and I don\'t want this to become a political rant, but of course, global politics at the moment are not necessarily facilitating best outcomes for patients, nevermind. Caregiver, caregivers of the world and humans in the world. Yeah. Uh, there\'s an awful lot of conflict going on at the moment, and only recently I\'ve spoken to someone living, living through that in Ukraine, and I hear these stories and I see them in the news, and it\'s, it\'s very, very difficult.

Speaker:It\'s a difficult world that we\'re navigating, isn\'t it, at the moment. And very, more importantly, we need to remember what\'s important and what\'s important is leading with kindness. Giving people the care and the attention that they need and supporting them through that, whatever that looks like.

Speaker:Everyone\'s situation is entirely unique and entirely different, isn\'t it?

Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Very, very unique. It is not a, it is not a one size fits all for patients. There is not a one size fits all for studies. There is just not a one size fits all period.

Speaker:Yeah. I think it\'s a really, it\'s a really.

Speaker:Amazing insight that you\'ve given there and, you know, someone who has dealt with trauma and loss and, and dealing with, being a caregiver, supporting my parents over the last few years, the care that, the care that my father had up until his recent passing was remarkable in the UK because he was given literally.

Speaker:The best possible care that he could have got from the UK NHS. There was nothing they could have done anymore. He had medication delivered to his home. My mom, as his caregiver, was able to support him through that. But literally at the drop of a phone call, there could be a nurse or a doctor there within moments.

Speaker:It shouldn\'t be though that a 90 plus year old person who is, receiving end of life care needs to be in that state. In order to get that effectively that equivalent to your concierge service that you speak about now. He wasn\'t in a clinical trial, he was just old and frail and getting more frail by the day.

Speaker:But as I say, the service that your company is providing is so pivotal to all of these support angles that people don\'t consider until they\'re in it.

Speaker 2: Of course. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We, we live it every day, honestly. So we, we almost have to think about it and consider how do we, how do we do it?

Speaker 2: Where do we go?

Speaker:Yeah, exactly.

Speaker:So you, you mentioned, you mentioned about the size of the company, about Dell. Is that a fairly level size of company at the moment? What\'s your trajectory and plan for growth over the next couple of years and, and alternatively around that, how does. Swift changes in and around technology and the availability of these technologies, playing into that.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So we\'re, I mean, from a trajectory perspective, we want, in the next couple of years, we want to hit over 50 people in the next couple of years. The, from a technology perspective, there\'s definitely a much heavier lift on the technology side of the world. So when, if you see the number of people that we\'ve hired recently has been heavier on the, the two areas where it\'s been heavy on is technology and concierge and obviously, I think our technology, our development team just this year alone probably doubled, over the, since, since what it was three years ago.

Speaker 2: The push of AI is, one area where we\'re. Even developing even more, and AI is becoming more and more interesting the way the more that you learn about it and the more that we see what the possibilities are, because we can\'t.

Speaker 2: We can\'t escape it anymore. There\'s a lot of everybody, everybody is on chat, GPT, everybody\'s using some sort of an AI channel, but I think we have to, break through the noise of, not everything we do is ai. There are some areas that are just, it\'s just. It\'s just a product. It just, tech stack of some sort that is not ai, but some areas where we see ai, the whole generative AI side of the world is, is, is amazing.

Speaker 2: One of the initial areas that we\'re diving into AI for is, so our. This is probably something I haven\'t mentioned yet, but our concierge teams, one of the areas where our concierge team supports quite a bit is as well as prescreening, for recruitment. And it supports, sites quite a bit.

Speaker 2: So as we look at the prescreening funnel, 70% of patients that show interest. They don\'t even make it to that first call because we lose them somewhere from when they found out about the study till when someone calls them. And then 50% of patients that actually get to screening, they don\'t even get past that screening phase.

Speaker 2: So those are some things that we\'re looking at to see what can AI help do? Can we filter? So for example, so we developed this tool for example, where. Let\'s say Sarah, who\'s a, rare disease patient, goes online, searches for a study, she identifies a study, and then instead of having to, wait till next day, someone call her or being presented with FAQ aesthetic pages, what if Sarah\'s presented with, an an, an AI module agent, that conversate with Sarah that knows more about the study?

Speaker 2: Um, then, then than we think and can speak in Sarah\'s language, whatever language that is. And then when Sarah\'s done, they\'re able to schedule her for an actual screening call, right? So the idea here is we want to make recruitment much faster. We want to streamline it more. And simplify it, right?

Speaker 2: So this is an area where, we\'ve got a product in beta that we\'re, testing out. But even if we think about, even further from that, and as part of clinical trials, what if a patient is in the study and they have questions or if an investigator has some questions about what does my data look like?

Speaker 2: I think over time. The world of I need reports might not be as important as, can I have, a chat agent that I can ask a question and it will tell me, oh, here you have, X number of patients that have been in compliance because of 1, 2, 3, this is an area where, we\'re developing a lot for, I think everybody\'s been after eCOA, ePRO.

Speaker 2: How do we make it easier, better things of that nature.

Speaker 2: So, the world of eCOA and ePRO for us are where we started, on the PRO side of the world. We\'ll always be there. But then also given that we have a wearable agnostic. Platform.

Speaker 2: Our goal is to have the largest set of wearables within our platform in the industry. And as we bring in the largest number of wearables in the industry is we want them to be turnkey, so that way it doesn\'t take six or eight months for you to bring in a new wearable into the study. Now Delve has the wearable already configured.

Speaker 2: We know how it works, and as we push it out, we know how to operationalize these wearables in a clinical trial. So those are some areas where our tech is gonna be heavy, is gonna be pushing hard. Where I see our future is gonna be as well.

Speaker:So with regards to a timescale to that, do you have a, a plan when those Ai ag agentic advisors will be in place for de of health? Do you have, do you have a, a roadmap to, to that particular

Speaker 2: delivery? We\'re, so we\'re beta testing a couple of them right now. It\'s a bit difficult. How soon do we have to push or can we push because it\'s, every AI has been interesting.

Speaker 2: People are like, yeah, we want AI tools and No, no, we don\'t want AI tools. We want, it\'s like. At what point do you really push it? And are people, are we ready for it? Like I think trust factor is a big deal. So it\'s, we\'re still early. I do believe that our phrase AI agent is gonna be out this year.

Speaker 2: Don\'t honestly have the exact timeframe yet, but that\'s kind of really what\'s, as part of our roadmap is to push that out this year. So.

Speaker:That\'s very exciting.

Speaker:And, and where do you, where do you stand with regards to the human in the loop in that particular point? So I\'m assuming, and, and I\'ll ask this on behalf of our listeners, where do you see that human in the loop if indeed you do?

Speaker 2: I don\'t see that the human will ever go away. I think there are some things that AI can do well, I think. There are some things listen, like AI will never be as empathetic as a patient. AI will struggle sometimes to answer. Complex study data that, a human being will just have to kind of think about it on the go, on the fly.

Speaker 2: So I don\'t think that the human will go away. I think the AI is an enabler, to help the human get more qualified patients help make answers, better answers. Even if you have human on the other phone, like for example, when we deploy these pre screeners into the study, they actually, they have to.

Speaker 2: Read the protocol. They have to learn what the protocol is about. So when they\'re talking to patients, they understand. But what if you get a complex question, right? What do you do? So you\'ve got two options. Either I\'m gonna be like, okay, well hold on, let me go ask, or can I ask a chat agent that has already learned about these tools, AI tools interesting.

Speaker 2: Amir Laha, he just posted this, blog earlier this morning that made me think, where he was basically saying, listen, AI knows about everything, so, and he gave this beautiful example about cars. So let\'s say you\'re really interested in a specific car and you, you go out and you look at it and.

Speaker 2: All of a sudden you see that car everywhere. You\'re like, oh my God, is it a sign? And it\'s actually interesting \'cause no, it is not a sign, it\'s just that your mind has shifted a little bit. And e AI does not work like that, e AI knows about all the black Mercedes that exist and all the black Hondas that exist and all this stuff,

Speaker 2: and it\'s just a matter of what is the right question that I need to ask to figure out which black Honda, or which black Mercedes I really want to pick, so it\'s interesting. Anyways, so those are some areas that I think we have to be empathetic about and thought about it.

Speaker 2: But what if you need a very specific feature and something that is really complex and can you customize it to do this way? AI might not know how to do that. I don\'t know.

Speaker:I love that. I love that example. It\'s exactly, exactly right. I felt I needed to ask the question because it\'s something that keeps coming up in all conversations.

Speaker:You know, you only have to turn on the tv, read the rolling news. It\'s everywhere. It\'s front and center. It\'s on our homepage of every computer now, whether we like it or not, it\'s there listening to us. Thank you for sharing that and I think that\'s a really helpful insight. Also, I think the other area of interest is really.

Speaker:The fact that there will always be a human in the loop. I hope as long as I\'ve got, breath in my body and desire to work in this field, I don\'t wanna be replaced by robots. Robots can never have these conversations and see the whites of one another and one another\'s eyes and respond to that.

Speaker:So I really appreciate that. Thank you, wessin. One other question before we move on to our quickfire round. Plans for the future beyond the intervention of ai. What do you, what do you see for Dell, and where, what are you hoping for for the, for the company? For the organization.

Speaker:In, in supporting the needs of patients.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Honestly, we, we, we hope for better, more complex, better studies. And, you know, one of the things that we, we struggle with sometimes is. Trying to get into the door of some of the larger organizations. \'cause we\'re a smaller company, right? So it\'s.

Speaker 2: Kind of that pay to play world, right? So those are some areas where we struggle in. I\'m, I\'m personally, I\'m just not a huge fan of pay to play, but I know it\'s part of doing business, right? So favoritism is just a thing. But what we wish for is we want more people to know about us. What we do. We see people that come in and they\'re like, yes, this is exactly what I want.

Speaker 2: Right? We wish for faster, more organized studies. We, we wish for studies to run much smoother. We want to be able to show, like the ROI is there, right? The ROI, which can mean, listen, you don\'t have to lose, you know, 30% of your patients. You don\'t have to rely heavily on the sites to do.

Speaker 2: Everything and everybody\'s gonna struggle at end day. I mean, you hear it everywhere where struggles are like overworked, CRAs are overworked. And, there are better ways that we can do things. And, and we just, honestly, we, we always ask like, Hey, give us a fair chance. Let us show you how we can really do and, and what we can do to help.

Speaker 2: You know, as, as part of our future, we, we definitely wanna grow. We want to be here for the long term, and, and we wanna make sure that we keep supporting the right studies across different disease areas, right? Even as you look into, rare disease, right, rare diseases is, is one of those, areas, therapeutic areas that it\'s, it\'s a difficult area, right?

Speaker 2: Like you get one patient and if you lose them, that\'s almost like a quarter million dollar, if not more. So what do you gotta do to, to help keep that patient? And also as we think about wearables and how we can integrate those into, studies gather some more of that real world data that gives you better perspective, but also think about when you think about wearables.

Speaker 2: It is not, don\'t think about the entire. Data set. It\'s really more of what trends are we looking for? What set of capabilities are we gonna be after? I mean, you probably know about this more than me in some areas, but, you know, that\'s, where we want to go, where we want to hit, hit boundaries and push the limits in clinical research.

Speaker:Yeah, I mean, real world evidence is definitely where I see the future. As I, as I mentioned to you before, we, we hit record on this. The last few years I\'ve been working a lot in and around real world evidence. Having spent a lot of time in and around clinical trials more, more broadly, and it str, it strikes me that big pharma are also realizing the value of those big data sets, accessing those not always easy and patterns are not always easy, but with the likes of the tools that we talked about today in in large language models, they are becoming easier and easier to acquire that information in those.

Speaker:Great big data sets that exist in various different locations around the globe. So, I think it\'s a great point to, move on to the quickfire round.

Speaker:So what is the one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?

Speaker 2: Don\'t stress. It will be okay.

Speaker:Nice. What are the top three qualities you value value most when building a team?

Speaker 2: Right here. Persistence the hustle and always stay hungry.

Speaker:I also, so underneath that, stay hungry. Stay humble.

Speaker 2: Stay humble and remember why you started.

Speaker:Remember your why exactly. I think, I think you are living proof of that. We, Sam? Thank you. What is your favorite thing outside of work?

Speaker 2: Honestly, just hanging out with my kids.

Speaker 2: It\'s the one thing that, if I\'m stressed as hell, my kids will come in and they\'ll make fun of me or do something that will just put a smile on my face. I\'m that\'s, that\'s just, and it just happened Y yesterday, it makes you step back and think, it will be okay.

Speaker:Bless our children. And finally, what is your number one golden rule for life and business?

Speaker 2: It\'s the hustle. I don\'t, I look at myself and I don\'t think i\'m the smartest or brightest guy around. I just, I know myself. I hustle and I go after what I really want to achieve. If I get there, that\'s amazing. If I don\'t get there. It\'s unfortunate. I\'ll try another way.

Speaker:That\'s wonderful.

Speaker:Well, it\'s been an absolute delight speaking to you today, wean. Thank you for taking the time, telling us all about Dell Health, the principles on which the company is clearly built and is moving forward with, and I think more importantly, I hope this conversation is opening up opportunities for you in the future with some of those.

Speaker:Big players at the top table. It shouldn\'t always be about size, meeting size, it should be about people, meeting people and connecting around, capabilities, interest and passion. And I think it\'s very clear to all of our audience that you certainly, have that about everything that you do. So if anyone in our audience wants to make contact with you sen, what\'s the best way that they can get a hold of you?

Speaker 2: Yeah, just, our website, you go into our website and go to the contact page and, we see those only emails coming in. So, that\'s probably the best way to, to get in touch with me or through LinkedIn. So

Speaker:thank you very much. So just to reiterate, is that Delve health.com?

Speaker 2: Deve health com?

Speaker 2: Correct.

Speaker:Wonderful. I, I really appreciate you taking the time today. We, it\'s been a delight to welcome to you onto Pharma Prescribed and I look forward to continuing the conversation with you in the future.

Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It was a pleasure.