Kellogg students make All-Innovate Final - update

On the afternoon of Thursday 1 December, Kellogg students Jasmine Reese and Kim Shen Pang, along with their colleagues Cheryl Tan (St Hughs) and Serena Vales (Linacre) will take part in the All-Innovate Finals, where they will pitch their early-stage start-up clinical trial platform TrialeX.

(In no particular order) Jasmine Reese, Cheryl Tan, Serena Vales, Kim Shen Pang

All-Innovate is Oxford’s inter-college idea competition. The competition is run by the Saïd Business School’s Entrepreneurship Centre, in collaboration with all Oxford colleges. The TrialeX team will pitch their entrepreneurial ideas for a chance to win a share of £30,000. Prizes will be awarded to the strongest ideas to address real challenges and that can achieve an impact.

Jasmine explains the team’s reasons for developing TrialeX:

Our mission is to put the public at the forefront of research by educating, empowering, and facilitating exploration of clinical trials.

TrialeX is an early-stage start-up co-founded by three clinical scientists, Cheryl, Jasmine, and Serena, and a Software and Systems Security MSc student, Kim. At TrialeX, we are building a clinical trial platform aimed at reducing the inefficiencies of participant recruitment and retention that currently hinder the successful completion of clinical trials. We are also passionate about increasing the inclusion of underrepresented groups in clinical trials – after all, disease does not discriminate, so why should clinical trials? We aim to empower the public to take charge of their health through providing personable outreach events that will educate and support communities. We are also bridging the gap between scientists and participants to enable transparency and build trust surrounding clinical trial participation. Ultimately, this will increase the time- and budgetary-efficiency of trials. We believe our solutions will revolutionise how clinical trials are approached by the public, scientists, and funders. Tackling recruitment and retention issues will increase the possibility of new life-changing treatments entering the market, increase the ability to channel more funding for future clinical trials, and ultimately result in improved public health.

We are currently conducting market research and will soon be holding interviews. If you would like to take part in our market research and/or interviews, please contact jasmine.reese@kellogg.ox.ac.uk and specify whether you will be taking part as a member of the public, or as a clinical trial scientist.

We wish Jasmine, Kim, Serena and Cheryl all the best for the finals.

Update

Unfortunately, the TrialeX team didn’t win this year’s competition. Jasmine told us, ‘it was a great experience, and we are very happy that we got as far as we did since it was our first pitch. Hopefully it won’t be the last time you hear about TrialeX, we are already planning our next applications for funding opportunities!’