Hello and a very warm welcome to Real-World Data After Dark. This is something new that we’re trying at Norstella, a mini series of conversations on the real world data and its importance to the pharmaceutical industry, all mixed with late night talk show chat show vibes. My name is Daniel Chancellor, VP of thought leadership at Norstella. I’m going to be playing the role of your chat show host today and I’m delighted to be joined by two not only excellent colleagues but real subject matter experts when it comes to RWD. So Dr. Madeline Nayla, she is our chief clinician at North Stella. How are you doing?
I’m doing well, thank you. Very excited to be on the show
Today. Great. Lastly but not least, we have Lance Walkenbrotz, senior principal of RWD Solutions. Welcome to the show.
Thank you. Looking forward to the conversation.
Great. Well, let’s take a little minute to learn a bit about what you do in your day-to-day. So Maddie, what does a typical day look like for you?
Yeah, what I love about my job is every day can be different. So some days I’m in calls all day long with our clients, really working on their solutions, getting to know our clients, how we can best support them, and having that direct client interaction. And some days I’m really integrated in our data asset and reviewing data and making sure we’re finding the patients that need and the highest value solution for the client. So day-to-day can be different, but enjoy both aspects of the job.
Thanks. And how about you, Lance?
Yeah, very similar to Dr. Nailer. I think my day is, I anticipate what my schedule is going to be and it always changes right there. So a lot of times it’s client discussions. Yeah. And the exciting thing really is just really to talk to our clients and understand what are the things that they’re focusing on and how is the best way to support that. It makes the day very interesting. The days go by very fast. Our days start early and sometimes end very late, but it’s always like changing thing. I think first and foremost is really partnering with clients.That’s typically what my day looks like. And depending upon what the client’s use case, that can change every hour, every minute there.
Well, you’re both talking very much about the clients that you’re working with. And I know you’ve got some really cool stories about some powerful projects that you’ve worked on. Is there one that stands out the most to you, Maddie?
Yeah. I’ve really enjoyed lately our rare disease projects. So we support across all indications, across TAs. All of our projects are interesting. I think our data is making such an impact in this industry on patients, but in the rare disease space, we’ve really been able to find these patients that clients couldn’t find otherwise. One of our clients told us recently, “We are looking for a needle in a haystack and you found that needle for us.” And so to hear that, to hear the impact we’re having, to hear even a couple of patients got on a therapy because of the work we’re doing is always really impactful on our side. So all of our indications I enjoy supporting, but rare disease, finding those patients of need and finding those hard to reach patients has been really fulfilling lately.
Yeah. Super, super powerful. Thanks, Maddie. And Lance, what stands out to you in terms of the most impactful work that you’ve done?
Yeah. So I came to Norstella prior to that, I spent a number of years in oncology within blood cancers right there and really focused in on AML and glioblastoma. One of the things that I get really excited about and that’s been impactful is talking to clients who are trying to develop drugs. And it’s these individuals who spent years trying to bring a product to market to give a change in therapy, something that hasn’t been done before. And one of those cases was it was an AML and it’s a hard disease and there’s not been a lot of success within that patient population. And for these clinical trials that we’re helping support, it’s really giving an extension to these patients’ lives. And that’s really what’s exciting to me. It’s actually understanding the passion that our clients have when they’re changing the actual market there. So those types of projects really excite me and it drives some of the stuff we do.
I think what’s changed lately in my role is historically I was just focused on data and just analyzing it. Our company has grown where we bring in clinical experts. So my ability to work with someone like Dr. Naylor actually just adds a lot more value that we can do. So we’re bringing both clinical insights and data together and that’s what some of the projects that really, really excite me.
That’s great. So before we go on too much into the clinical detail and the data detail, I want to take a bit of a step back because this is our first show. We’re trying to get to know everyone. So actually let’s talk about some fun stuff. Maddie, I hear you have a preschooler that’s quite well known amongst your clients sometimes joins your project calls. Any fun stories there to share? He
Is. He actually just started kindergarten. So it’s been a new world for us these last couple of weeks. Started on a really high note in kindergarten and now he wakes up every morning and says, “I have to do this every day. I have to go to school every day, mom.” So we’re navigating that, but he is quite popular among our clients. They’re all very understanding. He pops on and says, hi, they all ask me. Some of our clients actually reached out and said, “I hear Steven’s going to kindergarten this week and just to check in on how he’s doing.” So great to have that relationship with our clients and great that they know being a mom is just as important to me as all the work I do.
Yeah, quite some changes you’re going through there. You’re probably three years, three and a half years maybe ahead of my schedule. So I have a son that’s just beginning to walk and finding his first words, but I’m hoping you can help me with a bit of advice. So I always struggle to explain what Norstella does to people, to adults, let alone miniature humans. What’s it they say, explain like I’m five? How do you kind of explain to your son or your son explains to their peers what you do, what mommy does for work? Yeah,
It’s funny. I just asked him this the other day because in kindergarten they say, “What does mom and dad do for work?” And I said, “Well, what did you tell your teacher?” And he said, “Well, my mom is a science doctor and she works with pharmaceutical companies and data and helps a lot of people. ” Here I’m just saying pharmaceutical companies, I was like, “Wow, that’s really good.” So he hit it pretty spot on, but that’s basically what we do in ourday today, work with pharmaceutical companies and data and always aim to help a lot of people.
Yeah, thanks. Some pretty big words there. I’m very
Impressed. Right? I know. I was quite impressed too. I was not expecting that answer for him, but I was very impressed.
Yes. Lance, not to leave you out, let’s get to know you a bit more. We hear that one of your passions is food. This is a bit of a reaching question, but how do you blend your passion with food and your approach to work? Are there any similarities in there?
Yeah, great question. There are some similarities there. I think first and foremost, I love to cook and I like to go out to restaurants. One of the things that I like to do is also host people there and everyone has different dietary needs or what they like to eat or what they don’t like to eat. So similar to my day, it’s just asking questions, understanding what does someone like to eat? What do they enjoy? What are they looking for? I take that a little bit of approach into my work environment right there. It’s like understanding what are clients trying to do, how can we support them? But yeah, so food is something that I’m very passionate about. Luckily enough, I live in Boston. We have a great access to restaurants, but I also think that we’re super close to Europe. So it’s always like a plane ride way to go try a new culinary experience.
Yeah, for sure. Whenever I visit Boston, it feels like the most homely place in the States that is. Certainly there’s less of a culture shot going on. I mean, obviously Boston is the center of the farmer universe and we hopefully will have plenty of Bostonians listening to this. Any direct restaurant recommendations you would make?
Yeah. I mean, Dunkin Donuts is just Donut Street today everywhere, right? So you can always go there. No, but I think what’s exciting here is we have great access to seafood and oysters, something I really love. Just right outside our office, there’s row 34. So I’d always recommend people want to come in and talk about real world data, drop in and we can go get oysters at row 34 afterwards.
Awesome. And your referral code is on the way.
Yeah, exactly. Hopefully I’ll get some bonus points after that. Awesome.
Lance is always our go- to when we go to the Boston office. Where should we go? Where should we go to dinner? He always has great recs. All
The way from Dunkin Donuts to oysters.
All the way from Dunkin Donuts. I know. When you said you’re going to Starbucks this morning, I said, “You guys have Starbucks in Boston? You have Dunking Donuts everywhere.”
All right. Well, that’s about all that we have time for in this first episode. So firstly, thank you for everyone joining us. Thank you, Maddie. Thank you, Lance, for being our guests. How have you enjoyed the format?
I really enjoy it. I think it’s great to just, like Lance noted, we work so closely together. It’s great to just have an open conversation, get to know you guys even more and get to tell the pharmaceutical world what we do every day. So I think it’s great. Thank you for having us join.
Yeah. I love this type of conversation. Hopefully people will get enjoyment out of it and look forward to discussing the next episodes as we move forward.
Brilliant. And I’m really glad that we have this opportunity to show not just your expertise, but also the fun side. Quite often, especially in real world data, it can get quite heavy, quite data intensive, but we have some pretty fun people to work with if you are engaging with Norstella. So thank you for joining us today and I’m looking forward to diving in further with Maddie and Lance in our next episode. So stay tuned.
