Recapitulation of TRIALL PROJECT AMA event held at AMA LOVERS CLUB.
Venue: https://t.me/amaloversclub
Date: Monday, 17th May, 2021
Time: 14:00 UTC
The TRIALL PROJECT team was represented by @Triallcommunity who judiciously shared with us detailed knowledge and information about TRIALL PROJECT.
1st Segment: INTRODUCTION
Q1: Can you please introduce yourself and your background, also introduce the team working on Triall?
ANS: Of course. I'm Mark van der Waal, co-founder and Head of Product Design for Triall.io. I'm also a PhD candidate in Health Technology Innovation. At Triall, I oversee design and development of our blockchain-integrated software solutions for clinical trial professionals.
Triall brings together a group of clinical operations experts, enterprise IT specialists, and blockchain developers. We share a common vision of making clinical trails more reliable and efficient by using blockchain technology for data provenance, audit trails, and identities. Our founding team members have all worked together over the past 5-10 years in business and academia.
Combined, our team has managed 100+ clinical trials and co-founded 20+ ventures in Life Sciences and B2B software domains, some of which have grown into successful 100+ fte companies. This experience has left us with deep roots in the clinical trial industry and strong ties to blockchain and IT standards groups (W3C, DIF, IEEE).
These connections allow us to rapidly pilot test new software features with medical researchers who are working in clinical trials on a daily basis.
Q2: Can you introduce Triall, what critical problems does it solve that existing solutions are not solving and what's the competitive advantage?
ANS: So clinical trials are research studies that are necessary to evaluate the safety and efficacy of new vaccines and medicines before these enter the market. I think that everyone around the world understands the importance of having safe and effective vaccines and medicines, especially in emergency situations such as now with COVID-19.
At Triall, we are applying blockchain technology for data integrity, data traceability, and identities to make clinical trials more reliable and efficient.
To summarize our value proposition in a very short sentence:
Triall brings web 3.0 to medical research and clinical trials.
By leveraging public blockchain protocols and by applying open blockchain standards such as decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials, Triall responds to two growing problems in the clinical trials industry:
1. Assurance of data integrity and traceability in clinical trials, which have become increasingly complex and digital over the past years.
2. Promotion of interoperability between existing clinical trial software systems, which currently operate in a heavily fragmented / isolated way.
So what do we bring to the $200+ billion clinical trials market that others don't?
There are many clinical trial software solutions out there. In fact, this is one of the key problems targeted by Triall: There's a plethora of clinical trial software systems that do not interact well. The current environment is heavily fragmented, with many isolated software solutions being used side-by-side. This translates into a lack of oversight, and recordkeeping difficulties for clinical trial professionals.
While there are some all-encompassing software suites that integrate different solutions under one banner, these are typically only affordable to the largest (say Top 20) of big pharma companies.
Meanwhile, the majority of the clinical trials industry (as represented by smaller industry players and academia) are hampered by suboptimal software solutions, hindering efficient development of vaccines and therapeutics.
Triall is unique in its approach to connect, rather than to compete with existing clinical trial software tools.
By leveraging decentralized technologies, Triall offers the clinical trials industry a gateway to blockchain-facilitated proofs of medical data, and blockchain-facilitated identity and access management across traditional organizational and system boundaries.
This will shape a digital ecosystem of modular, integrated clinical trial software solutions: the Triall ecosystem. Such a digital ecosystem will introduce the advantages of an all-encompassing software suite to clinical trial stakeholders around the world, while continuing to tailor to diverse user types, needs, and requirements.
When previously isolated clinical trial systems and their users may start to act in concert, the positive effects on the efficiency of clinical trial processes are hard to understate.
Triall is really embarking on a big project
Yes we are, but luckily we are supported by a global network of partners!
It all seems like auditing medicine and vaccines 😅
And we take things slowly, developing and releasing products in a step-by-step and agile way
True! In clinical trials, it's all about establishing conclusive data about the safety and efficacy of new vaccines / drugs. Blockchain offers a great toolset to assure that this process is reliable, tamper-resistant, and efficient.
Q3: When you evaluate the medicine/vaccine and discover some abnormalities
Or found out that it's not safe/efficient
What step do you take?
ANS: Interesting question. So if you're interested in some more context, I invite you all to take a look at Chapter 1 of the Triall whitepaper (https://www.triall.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Triall-Whitepaper-v2.1.pdf). It explains the clinical trial process and all the key parties involved.
In short: there are market regulators such as the US FDA or the EMA who are tasked with authorizing a candidate vaccine or drug. If these regulators discover abnormalities, products will not be allowed to enter the market.
But it is very important therefore that clinical trial data cannot be manipulated, accidentally or intentionally.
Triall develops blockchain-integrated solutions to ensure that the data cannot be manipulated. Regulators and other key stakeholders can verify the existence, integrity, and authenticity of the data.
Now, you should realize that clinical trials can take 10 years or even longer. So it's a very long process, with lots of data being build up. Having blockchain proofs and audit trails for the entire process offers tremendous value!
Q4: No doubt, a lot of accomplishment will be needed to make the project a success considering what is involved
Can you briefly tell us what milestones has been smashed so far and who is next in line.
It would be helpful if you can share your roadmap as well
ANS: Happy to do so. So we have booked our first successes already: we have a working product called Verial eTMF that demonstrates our blockchain functionalities. Verial eTMF enables medical researchers to establish verifiable proof of data integrity and shape blockchain audit trails (like discussed above). It is currently being used by 6 commercial clinical trial projects, and more projects are lined up. One of our customers is actually using Verial eTMF in the development of a new COVID-19 vaccine.
We have numerous innovations that we plan to develop and release in 2021. First, we will extend Verial eTMF with more features that streamline clinical trial document filing such as AI-enabled automatic document classification and blockchain-registered digital signatures.
Second, we will introduce Triall CTMS, a clinical trial management system for planning and oversight that reads and integrates data from other connected 'eClinical solutions' (industry jargon for software applications). In parallel to these core applications, we offer APIs that enable third-party eClinical solution providers to synergize with our infrastructure, by integrating with our blockchain features and Triall solutions.
These releases will shape the world's first digital ecosystem for clinical trials. Essentially, this will bring Web 3.0 thinking to the world of medical research and clinical trials. By releasing more applications and connecting third-party systems, we will gradually expand our ecosystem for the benefit of faster, safer, more affordable clinical trial processes around the world.
Q5: Can you briefly describe your PARTNERSHIPS so far?
ANS: Triall is supported by an international network of partners that bridges the healthcare and blockchain / crypto domains.
Partnerships that have been instrumental to our success so far include our technology partner Sphereon.com (with whom we have co-developed our first application Verial eTMF and blockchain microservices), and our clinical operations partner CR2O.nl (a clinical contract research organization that operates in international clinical trials for vaccines and drugs on a daily basis, and with whom we can rapidly pilot test our sofware solutions).
Moreover, our partnership with leading blockchain development agency Applicature.com has been key to the design, preparation and execution of our token sale, which is now in full swing.
Currently, we're in talks with many more strategic partners in the healthcare and blockchain domains, who will be gradually announced over the coming period. Our core focus is the sustainable growth of our ecosystem and its underlying token TRL, and onboarding new partners is key to this objective.
If you follow us on Telegram (t.me/triallcommunity) you will be among the first to hear our new partnerships.
Q6: Triall is a two-token ecosystem $TRL and $TCRED
What's the Individual utility of this tokens?
ANS: Correct, we have a two-token system that underpins the Triall ecosystem.
$TRL is our main utility token, and will be publicly tradable on decentralized and centralized exchanges.
$TCRED (short for Triall Application Credit) is the internal counterpart of TRL. $T-CRED can only be created by converting TRL, is used to pay for Triall solutions, and is designed with the end user (clinical trial professionals) in mind.
Let me briefly sum up the utility of our two-token system:
- Means of payment for all Triall solutions: by converting TRL to T-CRED
- P2P compensation of stakeholders in the ecosystem
- Engage and incentivize stakeholders for providing value to the ecosystem: development, bug hunting, best practices, etc.
- Governance: include stakeholders in setting the course of the ecosystem
- Memberships & community rewards: loyalty programs with rewards for end-users and community members.
2nd Segment: LIVE Questions
Q1: Because clinical trials contain large amounts of sensitive data, clinical data should be restricted to authorized persons only. What solutions has the Triall team developed to protect the confidentiality of clinical data?
https://twitter.com/captain_price9/status/1394296130775752712?s=20
ANS: Precisely. Restricting access to only those that have the appropriate credentials has of course always been important in the clinical trials environment. However, the environment has seen rapid digitalization over the past decade. There's an urgent need for tools that enable tamper-resistant identity and access management in this new digital environment. Blockchain technology offers incredible tools for this. Triall leverages open standards such as Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs), verifiable credentials, and smart contract-handled permissioning to shape a decentralized identity and access management layer for clinical trial software systems. This will ensure that only those entities that should be able to access/handle certain (medical) data objects can actually do so.
Q2: When I saw your project, the first thing that came to my mind was COVID-19. It may be a good reference for you to play an active role in combating this epidemic. Have you participated in clinical trials to prevent this epidemic, did you make any contribution as Triall in this process?
https://mobile.twitter.com/lastcall001/status/1394297396453064710
ANS: In fact, we are working with our clinical partners in setting up a clinical trial for COVID-19, where our Verial eTMF solution will be used (commerically) to allow reliable and secure clinical trial documentation. This study will review the safety and efficacy of a novel SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) vaccine candidate. So by providing our partners and clients with the right eClinical tools (now the eTMF, but later other applications such as the CTMS as well), we are able to improve the efficiency and reliability of their clinical operations. Ultimately, this will increase the time to market of such vaccine candidates and is bound to lower the overal costs of clinical development and the price of the product when it hits the market. In this regard, our solutions can be used for any type of clinical trial, including vaccines, biologicals, medicine, food, and medical devices.
Also, last year, research by our team was published in the renowned scientific journal Science (https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6492/719). This research article directly addresses the topic of applying blockchain technology to combat epidemic emergencies, and I think it truly shows the interdisciplinary nature of our team. The article integrates advanced insights from infectious diseases, vaccine development, and blockchain technology, and proposes a novel system for international cooperation and data sharing in epidemic emergencies, facilitated by blockchain.
Q3: Majority of your investors are in the medical /research field. How do you plan to get those who aren't in the medical field glued to Triall? What incentives can they look forward to?
https://twitter.com/purifyucha/status/1394274691939016706?s=19
ANS: This question touches upon an interesting point: We are interacting with different audiences. Of course, we have the medical field (end users of the Triall ecosystem), but we also have the blockchain / crypto field. We believe that building a sustainable digital ecosystem for clinical trials is greatly dependent on having a thriving, multi-stakeholder community. In the Triall ecosystem, all stakeholders should be incentivized to create and capture value. This is enabled by our token system, and by tokeneconomic mechanisms that are designed to stimulate engagement across stakeholder groups.
An example of this would be the Triall Community Fund: an investment vehicle that holds 10% of the total $TRL token supply. This TCF is specifically designed to reward and involve our community members. It will ensure that the Triall ecosystem can grow globally through bottom-up, community-sourced projects and initiatives. Examples of such projects may include a TRL (mobile) wallet, applications, token integration with other networks, marketing campaigns, websites promoting Triall, bounty programs, and competitions, or any other initiative that reaches a majority vote. After the initial pool of 10% of TRL tokens has been depleted, part of the sustainable operating income from Triall may be reinvested into the TCF.
Currently, as part of our strategic pre-sale round, we are building a strong network of partners, advisors, (token) investors that bridges the healthcare and crypto environment.
Q4: Some projects have tried to build a Blockchain for health as far back as 2019,one of them is INNBC, and uptil today they can't boost of any concrete success. Here we have Triall heading the same way, how experience is the Trial team to make the project a success in the longrun?
https://twitter.com/Cryptomachine15/status/1394284628043829253?s=19
ANS: Without critiquing any specific projects, I think that in general many crypto projects fail because they don't connect well to the target audience, even if their technology may be of a very high quality / added value potential. We might be different, in that we are deeply rooted in our target market.
As discussed, our team has been operating in medical research and clinical trials for many years. These years of industry operations have gained us a strong value network of partners and potential customers that stretches the globe. Moreover, leading stakeholders in our customer domain have expressed interest in our first products, which directly respond to actual customer pain points. We will continue to develop and gradually release these products, serving persistent unmet market needs.
In other words, our connection to the real world is very strong. This also makes our business case resistant against any crypto bearishness: no matter what happens, the development of vaccines and drugs will stay important, and our solutions will stay relevant for solving the industry-validated problems we are targeting.
I’d like to leave it at that for now. Happy to address any follow-up questions in our community: https://t.me/triallcommunity.
Follow Us On Our Various Social Media Communities For More Update;
And to close off with some links. Thanks for having me today, and I wish you all a great remainder of the day 🙂
For those interested in our token sale, don't forget to fill in the whitelisting form on our website www.triall.io
Pitch deck: https://www.triall.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Triall-Pitch-Deck-Apr-2021.pdf
Whitepaper: https://www.triall.io/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Triall-Whitepaper-v2.1.pdf
And of course our introduction video, which was released recently! Here’s our promo video: https://youtu.be/WIIyhFl5eeA
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