VSQRD — lab informatics built around your workflow

VSQRD

3 min read Original article ↗

One workspace for preclinical studies.

VSQRD gives sponsors a live view of every study and gives CROs a faster way to write updates and deliver reports.

Built by students at Harvard and UC Berkeley.

The portal

Pick the best offer on speed, cost and expertise.

CROs list the studies they run at a fixed price. For each study you compare every offer on its turnaround, its price and what the CRO has delivered.

The problem

A study run over email loses time at every handoff.

  1. A single desk, drawn in isometric projection, with one document on it.

    Before the study

    The sponsor and the CRO agree the terms, the study design and the deliverables over email. Then each side types them into its own files.

    • Nobody is sure which protocol version is current
    • The deliverables are listed in a proposal and nowhere else
    • Animal numbers are typed again into a spreadsheet

  2. A hopper narrowing to a bottleneck: work items funnel in at the top and queue at the neck.

    During the study

    The latest status is whatever the last weekly email said. An animal death or a dose excursion arrives in the same format as a routine report.

    • Updates sit in an inbox and are never filed
    • Problems are found late, when the work changes hands
    • The sponsor asks, the CRO finds out, and the answer is never written down

  3. A vertical stack of papers, one sheet pulled part-way out for review.

    Reporting and review

    Files arrive as email attachments and someone checks them by hand. Comments go back and forth and are hard to find later.

    • A missing column is found after delivery
    • Three versions share one file name
    • Sign-off waits on a document nobody can find
How the portal fixes it

How it works

The sponsor sets up the study, the CRO runs it, and both can see everything.

  1. 01Write the contract

    Before the study starts, the sponsor writes down what the CRO will deliver. That is the terms, the design table, and a checklist of files, with the columns each file must have.

  2. 02Run the study

    The CRO keeps the timeline up to date, posts short updates, and registers each animal to its group. Each time something happens, the other side gets an email with a link.

  3. 03Deliver checked files

    The portal checks every upload against the columns the sponsor asked for. If a file fails, only the CRO sees it. If it passes, the sponsor gets it and can accept it or send it back with a note.

What the portal does

What you get

One record both sides can trust.

A server and a database, drawn in isometric projection, standing together.

One portal for everyone
Every CRO and sponsor uses the same portal, with one login each

Private to the study
Only the organisations on a study can see it

A log of every action
Who uploaded, accepted or downloaded each file, and when. Nothing is overwritten.

Email notifications
Each event emails the other side a link. The data stays in the portal.

A track record for CROs
The portal counts the studies a CRO has delivered. It never names the sponsor.

Where to next

Read more, or get started.

You can sign up without talking to anyone. Or book a call with the two of us who build it.

  • Product

    What the portal does and how a study runs on it.

  • Company

    Why we started, how we work, and who you will talk to.

  • Sign up

    Set up your organisation in about a minute, as a CRO, a sponsor, or both.

  • Discovery session

    We go through one of your studies with you. No commitment after that.

Start with one study.

Create a study, add your CRO, and write the contract. After that, you decide whether to keep going.

Book a Discovery Session