YaoYanShe's 7th Anniversary: Seven Questions Unveiling Digital Innovation in Clinical Research

On December 17, Miaoyi Biotech (the parent company of Yaoyanshe), an innovative CRO technology platform, celebrated its seventh anniversary. Over the past seven years, Yaoyanshe has been committed to public welfare initiatives, striving to become “the most compassionate and trustworthy technology platform in the pharmaceutical R&D ecosystem,” while continuously driving the digital transformation of the clinical research industry.

How has Miaoyi Biotech navigated its innovation journey—from inclusive tools to SaaS systems tailored for clinical research scenarios, and further to an industry service trading platform? What transformations will this platform model bring to the industry? We explore the secrets behind Miaoyi Biotech’s innovations in clinical research through a “Seven Questions” format.

Q1: How can pharmaceutical and medical device companies reduce the costs of clinical trials?

The clinical research industry is labor-intensive and capital-intensive, with cost reduction efforts primarily focused on lowering labor costs and time costs.

Yao Yan She establishes standardization and proceduralization of clinical trials through digital systems. By leveraging SaaS tools, it reduces reliance on the experience of senior professionals, while minimizing manual errors, patient dropout rates, and project delays. Through its Trial.Link platform, which shares surplus work hours and provides access to innovative talent, Yao Yan She can cover research institutions across China, achieving optimal talent matching in the most cost-effective manner. This enhances project execution efficiency, thereby shortening the R&D cycle by approximately 20% and reducing R&D costs by approximately 15%.

Q2: How can the efficiency of clinical trials be improved?

To enhance the efficiency of clinical trials, it is essential to first improve the utilization rate of personnel work hours. By the end of 2021, there were approximately 400 to 450 Site Management Organization (SMO) companies in China; however, 80% of them were regional small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer than 100 employees, exhibiting significant localization characteristics and a highly fragmented industry landscape. The total number of Clinical Research Coordinators (CRCs) nationwide was around 35,000. Surveys indicated that 35%–50% of CRCs had a work hour utilization rate below 60%. The core reason lies in the fact that CRC work is confined to local areas, resulting in substantial variations in work hour utilization rates across different companies, regions, and time periods. Therefore, the Trial.Link platform aims to unite small and medium-sized SMO companies across China to build an efficient, high-quality SMO service platform with strong capabilities in institutional and investigator support, thereby improving site execution efficiency.

Tang Anbang, Co-founder of YaoYanShe and Head of the Business Development Division for the Trial.Link platform, stated that “talent, data, and technology” constitute the core strategy of Miaoyi Biotechnology. The company currently operates two major platforms: the YaoYanShe APP, which covers 95% of industry practitioners, and the Trial.Link platform, which has onboarded more than 360 small and medium-sized SMO companies across China, creating a “nationwide talent network.” This enables precise matching of suitable talent for projects within an average of three working days. Meanwhile, comprehensive and rich data provides precise navigation for projects, supporting decision-making in areas such as site selection, site initiation, and patient recruitment, thereby facilitating rapid resource matching and accelerating project launch. In addition, SaaS tools cover all scenarios of clinical research; by decomposing clinical research project tasks into checklist-based and standardized operational workflows, these tools drive execution personnel to improve work efficiency.

A head of a small SMO in a western Chinese city noted that the company typically faced unstable project demands, underutilized staff hours, and high labor costs. After joining the Trial.Link platform in May this year, the company secured several projects, which helped utilize previously idle working hours. Employees gained valuable experience and professional growth through involvement in more projects, while the company also increased its revenue.

Q3: How does the Trial.Link platform manage talent?

The clinical research industry faces a significant shortage of qualified professionals, high costs, and uneven competency levels, making it difficult to ensure the quality of clinical trials. The Trial.Link platform provides a suite of digital tools that streamline workflows for frontline clinical trial practitioners, enhancing efficiency and reducing error rates. Additionally, the platform has established an internet-based project incentive mechanism in which Clinical Research Coordinators (CRCs) are compensated based on results, rewarding higher productivity and fully motivating personnel.

Q4: What Makes a Tool a Good One?

Effective tools must be grounded in real-world business scenarios. All tools developed by YaoYanShe originate from the genuine needs of clinical trials and have been rigorously tested, iteratively upgraded, and refined through actual projects undertaken by the company. These tools are closely aligned with users’ operational contexts, ensuring intuitive usability and tangibly enhancing work efficiency.

Q5: How does the Trial.Link platform manage and ensure delivery quality?

The quality management system is the foundation and critical support of the Trial.Link platform, constituting the very basis of its operational model. Every stage of clinical research projects on the platform is supervised and controlled by dedicated project managers from Yaoyanshe. High-quality project execution and final deliverables are ensured through mechanisms including supplier qualification management, professional training and assessment systems, a three-tier quality control system, and risk management protocols.

Q6: How to Ensure a Seamless Transition During Personnel Changes?

The SMO industry experiences high talent turnover, placing significant demands on the scale of talent supply. Currently, the Trial.Link platform covers 95% of sites with designated preferred SMOs. Moreover, at most centers, the platform offers an average of five or more SMO vendors to choose from. This ensures that replacement personnel can be quickly identified in the event of staff departures, facilitating a rapid handover of project responsibilities.

In terms of project handover, the Trial.Link platform has also established a comprehensive set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for personnel transitions, ensuring that every critical project detail is thoroughly handed over. The use of digital tools has also created detailed audit trails for many historical tasks, facilitating the handover process. Additionally, we have our own clinical research coordinators (CRCs) from Yaoyanshe serving as backups.

Question 7: How many sites can the talent pool on the Trial.Link platform cover?

Currently, the robust talent network on the Trial.Link platform covers more than 2,500 clinical trial institutions across China. It can precisely match suitable Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) talent to projects within an average of three working days. Over 100 projects are being successfully executed through this platform model, earning customer recognition and satisfaction.

“A client stated, ‘Several sites for one of our projects were located in remote fourth-tier cities. We consulted multiple SMO companies, but none could provide full coverage. We later learned about the collaborative model for small and medium-sized SMOs on the Trial.Link platform and decided to give it a try, albeit with some skepticism. Within less than a week, Trial.Link matched each site with a local SMO company and maintained comprehensive oversight of project delivery quality, making the collaboration highly reassuring.’”

From 2015 to 2022, Miaoyi Biotechnology remained steadfast in its role as a determined driver and pioneering innovator, leveraging digitalization to enhance the efficiency of pharmaceutical R&D. While it has served as a benchmark model to some extent, the efficiency of a single company is far from sufficient for the industry as a whole. Looking ahead, Miaoyi Biotechnology expresses its commitment to collaborating with more partners to co-create a new ecosystem for clinical research services, promote supply-demand balance, strengthen network-wide collaboration, and unlock market potential. Our mission is to make pharmaceutical R&D more efficient and improve patients’ quality of life.