Walid Farooqi

I build bridges between biotech companies and healthcare institutions globally

[Walid Farooqi @WalidHFarooqi]

Median time to activate a trial at an NA cancer center: 5.5 months. NCI's target is 90 days. That's oncology, the largest research space. Likely worse everywhere else.

For an industry sponsor, that gap is first mover vs catch-up.

Building something for this. More soon.

[Walid Farooqi @WalidHFarooqi]

86% of PIs are exploring nonfederal funding. Exploring is the operative word.

The largest industry-academic deal in the US, Lilly-Purdue at $250M, took eight years of partnership to reach. And 150 years of shared history.

Institutions starting now have to be creative.

[Walid Farooqi @WalidHFarooqi]

1 in 4 NIH grant applications got funded in 2023. Last year, 1 in 7.

The budget didn't shrink. It went into fewer, larger awards while applications climbed.

If your research program depends on a single funder, you are not running a research program. You are running a countdown.

[Walid Farooqi @WalidHFarooqi]

I left to make that my job.

I will take this apart here: where the months actually go, what they cost, and what shortens them.

If your study is stuck at exactly this point, my DMs are open.

[Walid Farooqi @WalidHFarooqi]

Friday was my last day at Weill Cornell Medicine.

Five years running clinical studies in New York and Karachi, testing whether new health technologies actually work, and for whom.

Here is what I learned that made me leave. (A thread)

[Walid Farooqi @WalidHFarooqi]

It is solvable, and it is not glamorous work.

Contracts get pre negotiated. Protocols get built once and reused. Sites get prepared before a sponsor ever calls.

Somebody just has to own it end to end.