(From press release) – Davis-based startup incubator Davis Roots is proud to announce that a new medical information processing company, Psynthesys, has joined its program.
In a 2013 meeting amongst respected colleagues, Rick Erickson had an “aha” moment. While listening in on a discussion of a plan to re-indicate an already successful adult-approved antibiotic treatment for children, he began seeing holes in the system of communication between drug development and research site companies. Noting unnecessary costs and avoidable research errors, he concluded that there must be a better way to facilitate this kind of flow of information. By the end of that same meeting, Rick had envisioned a new approach to information access and exchange using cloud-based software technology.
Three years later, Rick found himself climbing Mt. Diablo alongside long-time friend and colleague, MIT microbiologist Greg Williams. As they talked about the heftier matters of their respective lives, Greg, a Davis resident since 1992, suggested that Rick consider both Davis and Davis Roots for his prospective projects. Within weeks, the team at Davis Roots were introduced to Rick and his idea to build a new pharmaceutical research software product. With clinical research veteran and Davis Roots co-founder Anthony Costello leading Roots’ medical technology mentorship activities, a highly capable team quickly formed around Psynthesys in support of its vision.
Both Rick and Greg are hopeful that the software produced by Psynthesys will successfully reduce costs and errors in communication that currently plague information exchanges between clinical research investigators and developers. In discussing Pynthesys’s future prospects, Anthony Costello commented that “clinical trials are notoriously complex and difficult, especially with regards to information access and data sharing. With thoughtful direction and a strong team, I believe that the Psynthesys product could prove invaluable in an industry known for unnecessarily cumbersome systems currently used to maintain data integrity in clinical trials.”
Having bypassed a large pool of Bay Area based business incubators and accelerators, Rick and Greg see the active, progressive community of Davis as the best starting point for their fledgling company. In addition to the high-quality mentor-and-advisorship offered by Davis Roots, they feel that both the availability of a highly-capable workforce in the UC Davis community and potential synergy with similar startup companies in the area will allow Psynthesys to reach its full potential.
Along with Psynthesys (www.psynthesys.com), the Davis Roots companies currently in residence are Foodful.ly (www.foodful.ly), , Sonanutech (www.sonanutech.com), and Gift of Education (www.thegiftofeducation.com).
About Psynthesys:Psynthesys is a web-hosted system that helps clinical research sponsor, site and regulatory personnel easily assemble and share research protocol information. The system’s unique structuring of data contained in documents like the study protocol, study manuals, informed consent, package inserts and visit schedule quickly turns complex information into an essential and pragmatic breakdown of actionable information. Differing by great degree from cumbersome Learning Management Systems, Psynthesys’s interactive information visualization environment creates focus for situation-centered knowledge needs of sponsor and site staff.
The product is primarily managed by study management teams and is used at clinical sites, investigator meetings, staff training sessions, GCP trainings, regulatory audits and safety monitoring boards.
Users can access the information at any time from web and/or mobile devices.
About Davis Roots: Davis Roots is a non-profit start-up business incubator, founded by Andy Hargadon, Anthony Costello, and Joe DiNunzio with the shared goal of fostering the formation and early development of new high-growth ventures. Davis Roots provides direct support to local start-up companies through grants, mentoring, networking, office space downtown Davis and capital resource development.
“see the active, progressive community of Davis as the best starting point for their fledgling company. In addition to the high-quality mentor-and-advisorship offered by Davis Roots, they feel that both the availability of a highly-capable workforce in the UC Davis community and potential synergy with similar startup companies in the area will allow Psynthesys to reach its full potential.”
This is how I believe that many of us see our community. Davis is a great site for “fledgling companies” with the university generated highly educated population. Situated as it is on and near ag land ( which is what created the university and drove the development of the City of Davis to begin with) it is perhaps not such a great choice for large scale manufacturing especially that not related to agriculture.
Agree Tia and that is the conundrum or at least one of them…..what an exciting company. I hope those of us in the community who are interested can learn more at a Roots open house, etc.!
Agreed Tia, and it has proximity to the booming bay area without suffering the same degree of cost of living escalation.
nice piece…innovative companies can and will find a way here even without huge bucks spent on unneeded massive new construction projects like the Nishi………nice to see this…
one doesn’t need newly proposed “innovation centers” to have innovation…..LOL