In 2010, OWL began providing clinical trial support to our first client.  Over 50 clients and 170+ studies later, things aren’t slowing down, and our mission hasn’t changed.

We founded OWL after spending time on both the sponsor and CRO sides of the industry. We experienced firsthand the wastefulness of this broken system, and saw the stress and mistrust suffered by both sides. We saw bloated CRO budgets, indifference of assigned team members to the mission of the project, frequent “bait and switch” of promising seasoned professionals, then assigning inexperienced rookies. All adding up to massive wastes of resources and money.

As professionals who believe our work can change the world significantly, we strove to create something better.

The classic research model is wasteful, overpriced, and rarely delivers on time or on budget. People are trained to obsess over insignificant tasks and details, and rarely focus on the big picture.  Monitors spend more time doing 'busywork' (completing trackers, updating poorly designed trial management systems, writing memos, attending teleconferences, training on SOP revisions that have no relevance to their job function, etc.) than they spend monitoring study data.  Perhaps most disturbing of all is the number of unscrupulous providers who burn client after client, and continue to thrive in the industry.  There is no true accountability or consequence for inefficient or bad behavior.  

We want to change this.
Our industry has an obligation to change this. 

We started our own company, and along with it, our own culture. There are two primary traits we look for in our contractors. First, we seek those who are truly interested in working in the field of oncology. This is our passion, and we want to work with people who feel the same way.  Second, we look for contractors who are experienced, proactive, and reliable.  They already know what needs to be done, and put out fires before they burn out of control. Luckily, people with the first trait tend to have the second one as well.

Why is OWL better?  Because we’re small, efficient, and we don't play games with your money. We don’t have a corporate building, and we don’t have a cast of regular employees. Everyone at OWL works on a contractual basis.  We shrink and expand as the needs of our clients do.  As a result, we do not have obligations to keep people (or entire departments) busy, even when there isn't anything for them to do. OWL personnel are all home-based, with nests located across the US and beyond, saving time and money.    

At OWL, we recognize that nobody can be as dedicated and invested in your product as you. We won’t try to take your study away from you! We want to help, but we don’t want to be presumptuous or overbearing, and we certainly don’t want to push services you didn’t request. Most of our clients manage their own studies, with OWL personnel serving as extensions of their team. This lets our clients form deeper, more collaborative relationships with us, and in our educated opinion, makes our people more dedicated than those you’ll find elsewhere.

Compare this to any large CRO, where you'll find loads of waste. Not-so-transparent unit billing structures, multiple levels of managers you might not have requested, CRAs with visit quota requirements, fees for every possible add-on service, pages upon pages of cross-eyed budget grids… All kinds of people doing all sorts of things - but what are they doing? Half the time, they're missing the big picture, wasting countless hours on unnecessary tasks, and throwing your money away. When they're paid by the query, or paid by the monitoring visit, and they've got stockholders to please - well, you do the math.  

Will the traditional CRO approach get you where you need to be? Eventually.  But your project is likely to be delayed and over budget, causing you to be dismayed and over-stressed!

At OWL, we focus on the big picture: data integrity, patient safety, primary endpoints, audit risk, efficiency, you know — the stuff you need to get your product approved.  We're not motivated by the bottom line.  We're looking for repeat business, by giving you what you need… and not what you don't.  

Our goal is pretty simple.  Let's get it done right, but efficiently.

Our Mission

OWL Oncology Research®, a Functional Service Provider (FSP), is a global network of hundreds of experienced clinical research experts specializing in oncology and rare disease trials. We deliver the highest quality clinical trial resources to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Our commitment is to ensure that your clinical trials are conducted effectively and efficiently so that new and promising treatments become available to the millions of people battling these diseases.