Payments, Pain, and Pragmatic AI
Fixing the unsexy but critical operational layer of clinical trials
Life Sciences Today this week
My guest this week was John Chinnici, CEO at Ledger Run.
I talked with Chinnici about his journey from consulting (Andersen, IBM) to Veeva, 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.
John 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, I’m excited to share with you the latest episode of the Life Sciences Today podcast.
Listen here
About me
For 25+ years I’ve built in tech, cybersecurity, privacy, and clinical data — 70+ clinical trials, 30+ Israeli MedTech startups, Verily, Amgen, and the Fortune 1 company.
Today I’m building OpenCRO - a fixed-price, fixed-schedule provider dedicated to helping MedTech leaders succeed more.
Drop me an email if you’re a MedTech leader betting on regulatory, reimbursement, and GTM design paths or book a call.
We’ll talk soon.