Health IT, Pharma, Startups

Clinverse raises $9.1M to take complexities out of clinical trial payments

If you had to do an infographic following the trajectory of clinical trial payments between […]

If you had to do an infographic following the trajectory of clinical trial payments between the pharmaceutical companies that sponsor global clinical trials and the principal investigators who run them, it would resemble something like tangled spaghetti. Why? Each principal investigator contract is separately negotiated and depends on the experiment. They are also located at different institutions all over the world.

The manual payment process that’s been the status quo for the industry means it can take up to six months for investigators to get paid. A few companies have developed platforms to simplify and accelerate the payment process, including Clinverse. The North Carolina company is using a recently closed Series C round to expand its infrastructure and boost its sales and marketing muscle, according to a company statement.

The 3-year-old company’s ClinPay platform automates payments to 2,200 investigator sites — doctor’s offices, hospitals and research centers in 62 countries. Clinverse has added a new investor, Edison Partners, who led the Series C round. Hatteras Venture Partners also took part in the $9.1 million funding round. Two from Edison Partners will join Clinverse’s board as part of the financing — Lenard Marcus, a partner, and director network member Teresa Winslow.

In response to emailed questions, a spokesman for the company said automating the financial services side of clinical trials is a quickly evolving, relatively, untapped growing market with plenty of room for the companies developing these solutions.

“There are currently few players that can solve the complex needs of automating the financial demands of clinical trials.  This funding will help us further our capability and allow us to add additional features to automate other financial management pain points that this industry is thirsting for technology to automate.  As the market further evolves we believe the industry continue to for best of breed solutions for clinical trial financial management.  We don’t see the industry converging on one solution resulting in one dominant company.”

In the past year Clinverse has nearly doubled its staff to 45 employees. Earlier this year, it said it expected to make 20 more hires in the next 12 months.

The company had a strong first quarter in which it added four new clients. It also added two strategic partnerships. A mid-size biopharma client will use its payment platform across Phase 1-3 studies. Another biotech client will use ClinPay for a global 500-site Phase 3 rescue study.

Another company that has worked to develop a faster payment method is Greenphire. Its ClinCard system helps solve the problem of reimbursing participants in a clinical trial whose identities need to remain anonymous. It delivers payment through electronic transfer to a debit card or directly to a patient’s bank account through an automatically generated electronic check.

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