Consulting Firm’s Efforts to Deliver New Therapies to Patients Faster is Bolstered by LISC
Jeanette Towles founded Synterex, a clinical and regulatory consulting firm, to help life science companies deliver new therapies to patients faster. When she hit capital roadblocks as she worked to grow her business, LISC stepped in to help. Learn how $1 million in affordable capital from the Abbott-LISC Initiative to Support Diverse Businesses in Health is helping Towles develop an artificial intelligence tool that will fuel Synterex’s growth.
Image above is courtesey of Cashman Photography and Disability:IN
Growing up, Jeanette Towles saw the challenges her parents faced getting good, or even adequate, medical care. Her father, a service-disabled veteran, and her mother, disabled by a chronic health condition, struggled to access treatments that could improve their quality of life. From an early age, the Boston native knew her life’s work would focus on assisting people in similar situations as her parents. Today, Towles fulfills this mission through Synterex, a clinical and regulatory consulting firm she founded to help biotech and other life science companies deliver important new therapies to patients in an expedited manner.
Towles’ road to entrepreneurship, in fact, stems from her own disability, which threatened to displace her from the workforce. Prior to starting Synterex in 2016, Towles held consulting, medical writing, and clinical science positions with a range of companies. Then she was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a disorder affecting blood flow that can cause lightheadedness, fainting and rapid heartbeat. When symptoms strike, Towles often needs to lie down in order for her circulation to adjust.
At the time of her diagnosis, Towles’ employer consistently praised her as a strong technical and scientific contributor but could not give her the workplace accommodations she required. That’s when the idea for Synterex was born.
“I spoke to some people I met in the industry, many of them strong woman leaders, who said they would be my first customers if I struck out on my own,” said Towles, who launched Synterex when she was in her mid-thirties, the same age at which her mother left the workforce due to her disability.
Disability:In, a global organization that promotes disability inclusion and equality in business, recently named Synterex the Disability-Owned Business Enterprise (DOBE) of the Year. Towles calls the award “the coolest thing” she’s ever received and is proud of the work community she’s built, which includes others with disabilities.
Towles had always funded her business costs with proceeds from contracts with clients. She didn’t need to seek capital until last year, when Synterex needed resources to develop a proprietary artificial intelligence (AI) tool, AgileWriter. The tool transforms regulatory and clinical documentation, dense and filled with technical and medical terminology, into plain language accessible to people without medical or technical backgrounds.
Towles hit roadblocks in her search for capital. She found interested investors, but none that would allow her to keep full ownership of the company. That all changed when she learned about the Abbott-LISC Initiative to Support Diverse Businesses in Health, which provided a $750,000 working capital loan and a $250,000 growth capital investment to Synterex to develop AgileWriter. The capital is helping with ongoing product testing, building add-on features and conducting routine maintenance.
“The prospect of giving up a large percentage of equity in a company that you fought so hard to start and grow is a hard pill to swallow,” said Towles. “I'm grateful that companies like ours can go to programs like the Abbott-LISC initiative to get capital and still retain full ownership.”
Towles expects AgileWriter to help Synterex expand relationships with existing clients and bring on new ones. She also believes the tool will help get therapies to market faster and at the same time nurture more diversity in clinical trials.
A case in point is the informed consent form, which breaks down the fundamental purpose of a clinical trial, its key elements and what is expected of participants. “In doing research for AgileWriter, I was stunned to learn that only 29% of the U.S. population is actually considered scientifically literate to the point where if you put an informed consent for a clinical trial in front of them, they would actually understand everything that they're committing to,” said Towles. “That number needs improvement, and we think that our tool is the way to get there.”