Payments, Pain, and Pragmatic AI in Clinical Trials - Life Sciences Today Podcast Episode 47

We’re excited to be back for another episode of the Life Sciences Today Podcast by Healthcare IT Today. My guest today is John Chinnici, CEO at Ledger Run. I talk with Chinnici about his journey from consulting (Andersen, IBM) to Viva, where he helped launch and grow Vault, and eventually to leading Ledger Run. Ledger Run focuses on the “unsexy but critical” operational layer of clinical trials: contracting and paying investigative sites. Chinnici explains how delayed, incorrect, and bureaucratic payments have become an accepted but damaging status quo in clinical research, despite sites running on razor-thin margins.

Ledger Run’s SaaS platform and services aim to ensure strict contract compliance, dramatically improve operational efficiency, and turn reliable payments into a competitive advantage for sponsors in site recruitment. Chinnici also argues that a major industry anti-pattern is pouring AI investment into volatile early research use cases while underinvesting in high-ROI operational applications such as automating invoice processing and other repetitive payment workflows.

Check out the main topics of discussion for this episode of the Life Sciences Today podcast:

• Tell us about your personal journey—how did you get from consulting and Viva to leading Ledger Run?
• Who are your customers, and what specific problems are you solving for them?
• How do you create value for sponsors and CROs in clinical trial payments and contracts?
• How do you capture that value—what does your business/revenue model look like?
• What are three things you want to do for your customers in the next 12–18 months to make them insanely happy?
• What is your competitive moat—what makes Ledger Run hard to copy compared with large CROs and other players?
• What is the biggest anti–design pattern you see in the industry right now?

Now, without further ado, we’re excited to share with you the next episode of the Life Sciences Today podcast.

Subscribe to Danny’s newsletter to get strategic patterns for life science leaders building a defensible business.

Be sure to subscribe to the Life Sciences Today Podcast on your favorite podcasting platform:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• iHeartRadio
• Amazon Music
• Pandora
• YouTube

Along with the popular podcasting platforms above, you can Subscribe to Healthcare IT Today on YouTube. Plus, all of the audio and video versions will be made available to stream on Healthcare IT Today. As a former pharma-tech founder who bootstrapped to exit, I now help TechBio and digital health CEOs grow revenue—by solving the tech, team, and go-to-market problems that stall your progress. If you want a warrior by your side, connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you work in Life Sciences IT, we’d love to hear where you agree and/or disagree with our takes on health IT innovation in life sciences. Feel free to share your thoughts and perspectives in the comments of this post, in the YouTube comments, or privately on our Contact Us page. Let us know what you think of the podcast and if you have any ideas for future episodes.

Thanks so much for listening!