SiteRx

MBA Program: Columbia Business School

Industry: Healthcare

Founding Student Names: Seth Goodman ‘19

Brief Description of Solution: SiteRx is a digital platform that instantly connects doctors and patients to clinical trials in their communities. We understand the doctor doesn’t have the time to research appropriate clinical trial options for every patient, so we do it for them. We integrate clinical trials into the overall continuum of care, making clinical trials a viable healthcare option for every doctor and every patient. We have developed a collaborative approach among patients, doctors, sponsors, and sites to redesign the paradigm for the clinical trials process, improving health outcomes and bringing ground-breaking treatments to market faster and cheaper for the benefit of the patient.

Funding Dollars: Undisclosed

What led you to launch this venture? My father has dedicated his life to Alzheimer’s disease care and research. Watching my father tirelessly work day in and day out with Alzheimer’s patients and their families – and choosing to devote nearly all of his time outside of the clinic to find a cure – made me realize that I had to be part of the solution. After studying the space and my father’s career in healthcare and clinical research, three key insights surfaced:

• There is a lack of general access to clinical research opportunities for patients.
• There are misaligned stakeholder incentives in the delivery of healthcare to patients.
• Vital insights from patients’ medical histories and records are buried across disparate, siloed patient data pools.

These three realities are cumulatively responsible for the fact that the cost of bringing ground-breaking and life-saving treatments to market has never been higher.

What has been your biggest accomplishment so far with your venture? Our team: We have built an amazing team of thought leaders from the healthcare and technology industries who understand what it takes to effectuate lasting change in a big, slow-moving market like healthcare. We have developed a core culture around our patient-first mentality, emphasizing the importance of speed and collaboration in the development of our platform. We are continuing to grow and are looking for the next healthcare changemaker to join our team!

How has your MBA program helped you further this startup venture? From day one at Columbia Business School, I knew the only recruiting I would be doing was for SiteRx. I came to CBS to build SiteRx, learn as much as I could about entrepreneurship, technology, and healthcare, and impact the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Columbia and in New York City. As the Co-President of the Columbia Entrepreneurs Organization and a founding member of the Graduate Entrepreneurship Council – a graduate network of entrepreneurs across CBS, HBS, Wharton, MIT, and Kellogg – my perspective on entrepreneurship and the choices I have made in the development of SiteRx are direct products of the experiences afforded to me by CBS.

I have worked closely with Jeremy, Cecilia, Lara, and the team at The Lang Center at Columbia Business School and Bunny and the team at the Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Management Program, along with the endless amazing professors and resources that the school has provided. They have helped me to test, refine, and further develop my hypotheses for what SiteRx is to become. I was accepted into The Columbia Business School Greenhouse Program, led by Dave Lerner and Brendan Burns, which provided the critical launchpad for my business during the last semester of my program. Upon graduating in May, I received a $100,000 investment in SiteRx from the Columbia Business School Lang Fund and our team is currently headquartered at the Columbia Startup Lab in SoHo. Columbia Business School has been instrumental in the development of what SiteRx is today and what it will become in the future.

What founder or entrepreneur inspired you to start your own entrepreneurial journey? How did he or she prove motivational to you? Once again, it was my father. Although he is not your typical entrepreneur, my father’s relentless dedication to his patients and his sacrifices to place himself at the forefront of the fight against Alzheimer’s Disease. We will ultimately realize the tangible results of this dedication as we edge closer to finding a cure – and this has inspired me to take a stand, get my hands dirty, and effectuate a lasting change in how healthcare is delivered to patients.

Which MBA class has been most valuable in building your startup and what was the biggest lesson you gained from it? Steve Blank’s Lean Launchpad course during my first year at CBS really drove the development of SiteRx. Steve taught that success is not driven by the amount of capital you raise for your venture, but rather is the result of deeply understanding customer and stakeholder value in an ecosystem (especially one as complex as healthcare) and starting to deliver that value where you can without large sums of money as a prerequisite. I did not wait around to graduate before starting SiteRx – I used my time in school to discover, learn, and deliver value to customers without a budget, or a large round of financing.

What is your long-term goal with your startup? SiteRx changes the way healthcare and treatment opportunities are delivered to patients in the United States and beyond. Our mission is to cure the first patient of Alzheimer’s disease (and other debilitating diseases), promote diversity and inclusion in clinical research, and bring ground-breaking treatments to market faster and cheaper for the benefit of every patient.