Case Study:
How PROPEL Enterprise Aided Helios Clinical Research’s Rapid Growth
Industry: Clinical Research
Location: USA
Helios Clinical Research is a clinical site network with a proven track record of quality results for patients and sponsors alike. Founded in 2022, Helios has more than 20 site locations across the country with a special focus on clinics reaching diverse patients in dense locations including Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and Ohio. Collectively, Helios has completed over 650 clinical trials and supported over 20,000 patients across multiple therapeutic areas.
What Devana Provided
PROPEL Enterprise
- Centralized platform for business intelligence
- Real-time organizational connectivity
- Powerful reporting and dashboards
- Elite support
Helios’ Results
Centralized Operations
- Centralized feasibility and site onboarding
- Improved pipeline management
- Performance metrics transparency
- Rapid growth
THE CHALLENGE
A Disjointed and Slow Feasibility Process and Lack of Visibility into Organizational Pipeline Performance
Armed with the goal to bring clinical trials to patients across middle America, Helios is a rapidly growing organization aiming to regularly add and onboard new sites. Alas, their method for feasibility and other key processes have historically been site-based and lacked a cohesive, centralized plan. Additionally, their trial pipeline was highly individualized making it difficult for leadership to analyze, obscuring any potential trends and making processes hard to scale. With plans to continue ramping up the onboarding of new sites, the leadership team at Helios realized they required a solution to centrally manage their clinical trial processes across all sites in their network.
THE SOLUTION
PROPEL Enterprise for Streamlined Feasibility and Comprehensive Reporting
After joining the organization in 2022 as the Executive Vice President of Business Development, Sergio Armani took the lead to make the most of Helios’ latest addition to their tech stack: Devana Solutions’ PROPEL Enterprise platform. Designed specifically for the clinical trials industry and used by leading site organizations, PROPEL provides one source-of-truth for central and site-based teams to monitor real-time trial progress, site capabilities, pipeline opportunities, and screening and enrollment data.
With a powerful new tool in their arsenal, overhauling Helios’ feasibility process was at the top of the list. Previously, the process was mired down by spreadsheets and a manual process performed at each site. With access for both central teams and sites to input data and track updates, PROPEL made it possible to establish an integrated process. Now, the central team can send out feasibility questionnaires to sites, receive real-time responses, and field any questions all within one platform. Oversight into the entire process is now possible every step of the way, while comprehensive reports break down site responses, turnaround times, acceptance rates, and more – driving agile decision making.
PROPEL’s reporting doesn’t stop at feasibility. With custom dashboards and reports, the executive leadership team has full oversight and real-time data for every facet of their business. They can easily track leads in their pipeline and flag as high priority for sponsors they are particularly interested in. The Helios Business Development (BD) team utilizes a “hot leads” report for the most valuable study opportunities based on total estimated revenue and projected amounts per patient. This report ensures that the BD and Feasibility teams are following up with sponsors and CROs on the opportunities which generate the most revenue for their business. Paired with historical data, this holistic approach to reporting allows the Helios leadership team to make effective, data-based decisions when choosing new trials, sponsors, and sites. At a glance they can see trial and enrollment progress across their entire network, allowing them to identify bottlenecks and capitalize on emerging trends.
"As Helios continues to grow, our PROPEL-based processes will make it easier and faster to get new sites onboarded and up to speed – accelerating business growth and bringing new treatment options to more patients across the country."
EB McLindon
Co-Founder and CEO, Helios Clinical Research
THE RESULT
An Efficient and Cohesive Process Priming Helios for Growth
By leveraging central support and gaining oversight into site-based processes with PROPEL, Helios is now a fully integrated clinical site network. With PROPEL for central team members and LYNK for site-based staff, Helios can manage their business development pipeline, track trial progress, and communicate with sites with one shared platform – eliminating unnecessary follow-up emails, calls, and meetings. Data and communication flows seamlessly between PROPEL and LYNK, keeping everyone in the loop regarding trial progress and new opportunities. According to Helios, their improved feasibility process is two to three times faster than the old manual, decentralized method using multiple spreadsheets, saving roughly six cumulative hours a week for feasibility-related tasks alone. Thanks to these time savings and an improved workflow, Helios is benefiting from faster feasibility turnaround times than similarly sized organizations.
With PROPEL’s powerful reporting capabilities, Helios has been able to define new organizational key performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs help them win new trial opportunities from sponsors while providing better insights into site activity, study startup timing metrics, and beyond. Prior to implementing PROPEL in late 2022, Helios’ average site response time for trial opportunities took an average of 4-5 days. Six months later, the average is now less than a single day. As Helios continues to grow, their PROPEL-based processes will make it easier and faster to get new sites onboarded and up to speed – accelerating business growth and bringing new treatment options to more patients across the country.
“We’re planning for rapid growth in the next 36 months,” said Sergio. “The only way to manage this growth is with PROPEL.”
Sergio Armani
Executive Vice President of Business Development, Helios Clinical Research
“With PROPEL, our BD team can manage client relationships as well as trial opportunities through the sales lifecycle, and our Feasibility team is able to easily manage our new centralized process through the platform. Being able to create custom reports and dashboards from the data within the system gives our team easy access to the information they need quickly.”
