Meet Scott Stout of MedVector Clinical Trials in West Side

Today we’d like to introduce you to Scott Stout.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
When I was a Financial Advisor, I was introducing two potential clients’ businesses to each other. One was a hospital analytics company used for hospital turnarounds, the other was a Private Equity company who buys hospitals. It seemed an obvious match.

While discussing potential fits between the two businesses, we explored potential revenue streams to the portfolio hospitals, and the topic of clinical trials came up, which the Private Equity company was not pursuing. When questioning why the answer was simple. While clinical studies can be very profitable, there is a significant upfront cost, logistics, and approvals that go along with clinical trials.

And even after jumping through those hoops they are not guaranteed any contracts with Pharma, so the expense risk does not make sense. I asked, “What about referring patients to other hospitals for clinical trials? Surely there are referral programs…” That was met with, “I’m not interested in losing my clients (patients) to other hospitals.” I followed up with, “What if we found a turn-key clinical trial company that uses your patient base and facilities and shares the profits with you without the expense risk?”

The Private Equity company said, “Yes! Let’s find that!” Turns out that doesn’t exist. So we continued brainstorming the concept and took it a step further with the idea of using Telemedicine to connect his patients (keeping them in his hospital generating revenue) to existing clinical trial sites virtually.

The idea was sound, so we contacted a telemedicine provider and asked who they use for clinical studies? They said, “Nobody! And we’ve been looking for two years!” It was at that point that I raised my hand and said, “If I do it, do I have the support of everyone in the room??” Now, the hospital turnaround company owner is my Co-Founder, the Private Equity Company was our Lead Investor, and the Telemedicine company gave us a 2-year exclusive. MedVector was born…

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
All startups have bumps in the road. For example, originally we thought we could piggy-back on an existing telemedicine network, but as it turns out, doctors and hospital departments don’t like to share equipment, so we had to build our own platform.

Then, even though we live in the “cloud” era, we realized we could have much better control of the data and user experience by building our own portable telemedicine devices. Now we can ship these “portable offices” anywhere in the country without relying on hospital equipment, maintenance, wifi connectivity (and reliability) or hospital IT staff.

The most interesting part of what we have created is that we have the ability to disrupt an industry while aligning it. Similar to Uber, we are not displacing any of the major players. Pharma, CROs, major hospital networks are all powerful companies that can squash companies, but because we are simply the conduit (we are not collecting data, hiring doctors, or acting as the Principal Investigator (PI)), everyone is rooting for us.

Pharma = Gets to save lives faster (faster to market)
CROs = Collect better data, faster, with less expense redundancy.
Hospitals = Generate turn-key revenue with no associated expenses (even from uninsured patients) or the risk of losing patients to another hospital.
Clinical Trial Sites = Get to capture more market share and increase profitability.
Patients = More access to advanced medicine, no horrible commutes.
FDA = Better balance of subject demographics (currently most clinical studies are predominately white.). Larger study sizes creates better data.
Insurance Companies = We don’t need them. Everything in a clinical study is paid for by Pharma. Subjects get basic medical supervision without the expense of the insurance company.

MedVector Clinical Trials – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
MedVector accelerates clinical trials by finding more subjects, faster. First, we search our national partner-hospital network to identify candidates in weeks, instead of years. Then, once candidates have been identified, MedVector connects subjects to existing studies, using our portable telemedicine device, which eliminates geographic barriers.

Now anyone, including the uninsured, can be identified and participate in advanced medicine, regardless of their location or financial status. And because subjects are connected via their local hospitals, the local hospital generates revenue, from supervised, clinical trial activities like x-rays, ECGs, and MRIs (paid for by Pharma, not insurance companies or government assistance), without having to worry about losing patients to another hospital.

Our solution aligns major industry players, instead of displacing them. CROs become more efficient, Clinical Trial Sites enroll more subjects, Hospitals generate revenue (even from uninsured patients), FDA gets more balanced demographic data, Patients have access to advanced medicine, and Pharmaceutical companies get to save lives, faster.

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I’m a professional investor at heart. While MedVector has identified a comprehensive solution to a very large industry gap, with many social benefits, compensating my investors for having faith in us is my primary goal. I’ve always said, “a high-five is better than a pat on the back.” I want to share our success and grab as many “high-fives” as possible along the way.

Contact Info:

• Address: 3415 S. Sepulveda Blvd. 10th Floor
  Los Angeles, CA 90034
• Website: www.MedVectorTrials.com
• Phone: 310 869 3100
• Email: [email protected]
• Other: https://youtu.be/FYdV_zxa5Js

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