Mural Health Technologies – a next-generation clinical trial participant management platform – recently announced that it has raised $8 million in seed funding, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, with participation from Virtue VC, Operator Partners, Arkitect Ventures, Correlation Ventures, and Project Mayhem Ventures. This funding round empowers the company to accelerate the growth of its Mural Link platform, which modernizes the clinical trial experience for both patients and caregivers.
Launched last year by Sam Whitaker, Jason Dong, and Shawn Milochik, Mural Health modernizes the clinical trial experience for participants and makes it easier to participate in trials. And Sam previously founded Greenphire, where he invented and commercialized the world’s first clinical trial payments technology: the ClinCard. And Mural Health represents both a disruption to Sam’s original platform and an expansion of functionality that leverages payments to manage and engage the participant. The company’s software platform Mural Link, provides a next-generation payment tech artfully integrated with transportation, communication, and data collection functionalities.
Being in a clinical trial can often be a burden, and the more difficult it is to be in the trial, the fewer people sign up and fewer people will remain in the trial. And Mural Link reduces the burden and increases the retention of trial participants in three core ways.
1.) The platform gives participants the power to choose how they receive payment, eliminating the predatory inactivity fees associated with prepaid debit cards that are typically used.
2.) Mural Link offers functionality to help patients arrive at site visits without incurring a cash expense through an Uber integration.
3.) Mural Link helps optimize for a positive trial experience through two-way secure participant messaging and real time experiential feedback that informs study personnel on how to optimize operations, ultimately preventing attrition.
Mural Health has three of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies in the world as customers and several biotechs like Sonex Health and research sites. And Mural Health also partnered up with several e-clinical platforms, such as Clinical ink and Ledger Run to provide an integrated solution. The company’s reception by its customers has been overwhelming.
Steve Kraus leads the investment on behalf of Bessemer Venture Partners and joined the Mural Health board of directors.
KEY QUOTES:
“Participants in clinical trials often get overlooked as the industry, and the world, focuses on study results. But patients and their caregivers represent ground-zero. They are the source of data and without their participation new therapies cannot be safely brought to market. We believe that as we serve participants well, study sponsors will enjoy improved enrollment, retention, and protocol compliance. And the global community will, consequently, be better served by the new products that are made possible by clinical R&D.”
— Sam Whitaker, Mural Health’s co-CEO and co-founder
“I have deployed several different participant support systems. Mural Health’s platform is exactly what the industry needs. Their product is intuitive, delightful to interact with, and is clearly designed for the patient and caretaker. The Mural team is genuinely passionate about delivering on their promises. Their level of service that follows is refreshing and personal. The Mural team has been an absolute pleasure to work with.”
— Cindy Grabowski, Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Sonex Health
“The Mural team has been hyper focused on creating value for the clinical research industry. I have been especially excited by the rapid results achieved within the largest global pharma companies. Mural Health has become the clear product leader in its category and I am excited to watch the story unfold and see what this very experienced and driven team is able to create.”
— Steve Kraus
