As we wind down Clymb’s first full year, we asked our team to reflect on the chaotic year that was 2023. We think it’s safe to say that regardless of your time in the Life Sciences Industry, 2023 was a very unique year that provided a whole suite of new challenges. As is often the case, we are all very busy during the year and don’t get time to reflect on the challenges and successes we had. So, we asked our team to reflect on one key takeaway that they had from this year and are happy to share it with you all!

One thing is certain- we are so thankful for our colleagues, partnerships and clients who have trusted in us this year. As a start-up it is so important for us to pick the right partners to work with to set us up for long term success. 2023 proved to be the perfect launching pad for us to continue to push forward and gear-up for a much-anticipated 2024!

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1. From our Co-Founder, Colin Izzo: How does a start-up navigate a struggling Biotech and Pharmaceutical market?

2023 has been one of the most unique and challenging years that I have seen in my career. Despite a few large Pharmaceutical M&As, Biotechnology and Life Sciences as a whole saw a significant reduction in IPOs, VC Funding and dealmaking in 2023. Market volatility has also led to an industry wide focus on resource management and capital allocation, leading to the largest reduction of labor force in biotech since the pandemic.

What does that mean for us?

It validates what we have known since our inception 18 months ago- Innovation is King. As a start-up company we have to be different because in this market our clients have to be different. For our clients, it has never been more important to have partners who they can rely on. By leveraging technology with the right team, we have been able provide key deliverables on time and on budget.  Layering in automation to our services offerings has been a key driver for our success in 2023 and is why we experienced an exponential growth. I am incredibly excited to continue the positive momentum next year.

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2. From our Director of Business Operations, Tim Weldon: Re-Focusing on Networking – getting back to an ‘old school’ approach.

Heading into 2023, we prioritized in-person events and conferences as our most impactful marketing channel.  The pandemic forced us all to pivot our marketing strategies over the past few years, going from no in person events in 2020 /2021 to a drastic increase in 2022.  Most of the industry has developed a bit of ‘Zoom Fatigue’ from the past 3 years and as a company, we sensed that in-person events were going to be as important as ever.

We invested in our 2023 Marketing budget and attended 12 events, including (3) International conferences.  Whether we were relishing local culture and cuisine or running the Golden Gate Bridge, we were developing relationships. It was instrumental for us to attend these events to effectively develop brand awareness, exhibit our products and services.  As the year progressed, we went from “Who are you, what do you do?” to be recognized as the TFL automation company.  We’ve seen a tremendous ROI on attending these conferences and will continue to value the impact of in-person events in 2024!

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3. From our Head of Technology and Software Engineering, Navin Dedhia: Complimenting Automation with the right team is the way of the future.

Automation has become a buzzword thrown around by a lot of different people who intend it to mean a lot of different things. This year, we spent time carefully deciding what it meant to us and how we were going to use it to positively impact the industry. The development of our Enterprise version of TFL Designer over the past year has been nothing short of transformative. Our dynamic team has dedicated extensive resources and expertise to create a product that sets new standards for innovation and automation. What’s more is that we have been able to see our idea go from concept to practical application and real-world usage.

We’ve learned that automation, as we see it, can be a massive asset to our industry and it can complement the team that our clients already have in place. We are so excited to launch our community version in 2024 so the whole industry will be able to use our tool. The community launch represents the culmination of our team’s planning, iterative design, and a commitment to delivering a cutting-edge solution. As we approach the launch date, we are confident that our product will not only streamline clinical trial data analysis but also contribute significantly to the efficiency and precision of data management within the industry.

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4. From our Co-Founder, Bhavin Busa: Building the right foundation is vital for long-term success.

Starting a new organization is a new experience for us and we have learned many valuable lessons in 2023. My one key takeaway is you need to build a foundation that is strong enough to support the growth of your organization. This didn’t just mean hiring the right people, though that is very important- It also meant putting the right infrastructure and partnerships in place for our group to set our team up for success.

The first part of our infrastructure build was to put in place a strong QMS system and SOPs to support our growing client need and ensure we are always audit-ready. We know how important the on-boarding and kick-off processes are in every project so by emphasizing our QMS and SOPs early this year we were able to streamline both processes.

We were very pleased with our partnerships with the Microsoft Founders Hub in 2023. Our alliance with Microsoft provides us with a platform to build and grow our technical infrastructure. Using Microsoft Azure, we were able to create a 21 CFR Part 11 compliant SCE to support our SAS and R computing. Investing in these pieces this year was absolutely pivotal to our success and has set up the perfect foundation to build on in 2024.Our partnerships with CDISC and PHUSE were very successful for us this year. Not only from a conference perspective but also from community perspective. Our team is very active in both communities this year we played a pivotal role in developing the CDISC foundational standard: Analysis Results Standard (ARS). Our commitment to collaboration was further demonstrated through our involvement in industry-wide CDISC and PHUSE projects.

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5. From our Project Manager & Marketing Specialist, Dhwani Shah: The importance of a strong website and marketing presence to separate yourself from competition.

Being a new company, our marketing efforts are extremely important in order for us to continue to get our name out there. One of the key milestones we had this year was in building a website that was both robust and concise. The main focus of our website was to assist in the marketing efforts of TFL Designer - an innovative solution to simplify your clinical trial analysis and reporting needs. We set a goal of becoming the highest searched website and company for TFL Automation and Standardization.

We learned that this was truly a company-wide effort and that it is very important to get input from our team members during the website build. For instance, we relied heavily on our Software Engineering team’s input when building out TFL Designer page which led to a greater response from our network which far exceeded our inbound lead goal. We have been very pleased with our metrics and traffic in 2023 and are confident that we will be able to continue to grow our marketing efforts in future years.