After working as a pharmacist for years, Jennifer Harris took up a position at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was there she got the bug to focus the rest of her career on research roles.
Harris moved into different medical affairs roles where she collaborated with thought leaders to better understand the unmet needs of patients. But finding researchers to collaborate with on studies is difficult, she said. The process usually involves cold emailing random physicians based on papers in a field of interest. And on the other end, healthcare providers are bombarded with so many emails they can’t answer them all.
“How broken is this industry that the healthcare providers are saying, ‘we don’t have access to the really cool new things that we want to get involved in,’” Harris said. “Meanwhile, pharma is spending millions of dollars, mostly unsuccessfully, trying to find those people and there’s just no way for the two to meet up.”
This question led her to start Golgi-CONNECT—a startup that matches healthcare providers and pharmacy companies based on shared interests. The startup is currently part of CED’s eighth GRO Incubator cohort (GrepBeat has previously covered fellow cohort members Brainery Labs, Murmuratto, Nearby Nearby, and No Show Hero).
Harris said Golgi functions like a dating app for the pharma industry. Healthcare providers set up a profile free of charge and pinpoint their interests based on a set of five modules: clinical trials, investigator-sponsored research, advisory boards/steering committees, new product data and new product approval.
Pharma companies then pay to post their opportunities on the platform and pick criteria that the algorithm uses to match them with appropriate healthcare providers. Both sides must accept the match and then a communication channel opens up.
Once the connection has been made, Harris said it is up to the healthcare provider and pharma company to use that line of communication any way they want.
She added that early-career healthcare providers often have no digital footprint and few publications, making it difficult to be discovered for research opportunities. Smaller pharma companies also tend to lack the medical liaisons and sales representatives they need to inform people about their drugs. She sees Golgi as something that can level the playing field in the industry.
“I feel like this Golgi-CONNECT has the ability to expand the pool into a younger group,” she said. “A more energetic, hungry group that really wants to get involved with research.”
Golgi Taking Shape
The startup’s team of eight is currently working on establishing a pilot program to test the Golgi interface. Harris said they plan to get around 500 healthcare providers and about six pharma companies to participate.
The pilot will be free for everyone involved so the Golgi team can collect feedback on the usability and functionality of the software.
Harris said that with a bootstrapped company and a team with limited experience in software development, her two biggest struggles have been funding and working with programmers to interpret her vision for the platform.
After their last round of friends and family investment, however, Harris said they have enough money to create the pilot. She is also relying on her experience in CED’s GRO Incubator to help her plan out future investment strategies.
QUICK BITS
Startup: Golgi-CONNECT
Founder: Jennifer Harris
Founded: 2023
Location: Chapel Hill
Website: golgiconnect.com
Funding: Bootstrapped
A major highlight, Harris said, came after launching Golgi-CONNECT in oncology when the team was invited to give a poster presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s meeting in June. She noted that about 50,000 oncology-focused healthcare professionals attended the meeting.
Looking toward the future of Golgi, Harris said they intend to expand beyond the U.S. to make the platform available globally. She added they also plan to offer a new module that would enable healthcare professionals to refer patients with rare diseases.
Providers would be able to input information about their patients along with the general geographical region within which they are willing to travel.
“It’s not that helpful if you find out there’s a trial in Washington State that you match and you just know that there’s no way that you can get there,” Harris said, “That’s just not feasible, so this allows them to further streamline the approach.”
Golgi is also looking for healthcare providers to participate in their pilot program. They are currently seeking those focused on breast cancer and hematologic malignancies.
