Hala Borno, Founder and CEO of Trial Library: Improving Patient Recruitment and Diversity in Oncology Clinical Trials

In today's episode of Category Visionaries, we speak with Hala Borno, Founder and CEO of Trial Library, an evidence-based platform for improving patient recruitment and diversity in oncology clinical trials, about why a more representative candidate pool is key to the future of better health for everyone. Trial Library partners with study sponsors to recruit candidates from a wide range of backgrounds to make sure that the principles of health equity are built into the process from the bottom up.

We also speak about Hala’s personal experience with her mother’s care choices that led her to a career in medicine, how she balances maintaining a commitment to patients with the responsibilities of being a CEO, what it means to build a public benefit company with empathy as its ‘North star,’  and why diversity in clinical trials depends largely on healthcare providers’ role as the gatekeepers.

Topics Discussed:

• How her mother’s personal challenges with overcoming health barriers led Hala to a career in medicine
• Hala’s background as a researcher in health equity, and what that term means in the context of the modern economy
• What it’s like to found a ‘public benefit company’ with empathy as its guiding principle in a highly competitive economy
• How Trial Library generates income by acting as a recruitment intermediary for study sponsors and helping them meet diversity targets
• The challenges of keeping a commitment to patient health while also taking on the responsibilities of a startup CEO
• Why healthcare providers remain the gatekeepers to clinical trials, and what their role in achieving health equity in the future is likely to be

 

Favorite book: 

The Emperor of All Maladies