Trialynx is named the DPHARM Idol Disrupt 2026 winner on stage at DPHARM in Boston on September 15, 2026.
Judges including representatives from Roche, Sanofi and AbbVie, along with investors and patient advocates, recognized how Trialynx’s hub-and-spoke model turns rounds of copy-and-paste rework into a single click, laying the digital foundation for the real-time trials of the future.
MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 30, 2026 — Minnesota startup Trialynx™, the digital infrastructure for launching real-time clinical trials, is bringing a fundamentally new model to clinical research. Instead of designing and developing studies document by document, Trialynx connects every decision, document and team to one shared source of truth at the center of a hub-and-spoke digital model built to make real-time clinical trials possible. That approach earned Trialynx the top honor at the DPHARM Idol Disrupt
2026 competition, where a panel of 12 judges selected the company from six finalists at the 16th annual DPHARM: Disruptive Innovations to Modernize Clinical Research conference in Boston.
DPHARM is one of clinical research’s premier innovation conferences, and this year’s Idol Disrupt judges included leaders from Gilead, Bristol Myers Squibb, Roche, Sanofi, Daiichi Sankyo, Summit Therapeutics, Bayer and AbbVie.
The DPHARM win follows Trialynx’s selection earlier this month as MN Cup’s Top Startup from Southern Minnesota. MN Cup is the statewide startup competition run by the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, and it drew 1,262 applications from across Minnesota in 2026.
“Trialynx can transform clinical trials by turning fragmented, document-based study design into an intelligent, structured digital workflow that enables faster, better-informed and more efficient trials,” said Ventsislav Dobrev, Global Clinical Integration Lead, Digital Biomarkers at Roche, in DPHARM’s official winner announcement.
The win comes at a turning point for clinical research, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) pilots real-time clinical trials. Yet most trials are still built from documents that sponsors, contract research organizations (CROs) and sites each write and reinterpret on their own, which can add months before the first patient is enrolled. The burden continues once a trial is underway: more than three in four protocols now require a substantial amendment, according to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, and each one can take months and cost a median of more than $500,000 in a Phase III trial as every document, team and downstream database is updated.
“The industry and the FDA are moving toward real-time clinical trials, and you cannot run a real-time trial on paper,” said Angie Schwab, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Trialynx, who has worked on more than 200 clinical trials over two decades in clinical research. “Winning DPHARM Idol Disrupt in front of leaders from some of the world’s largest sponsors tells us the industry is ready to move beyond the documents and into the digital future.”
Built on Decisions, Not Documents
Most clinical trials are still planned in stacks of separate documents that teams write and rewrite. Trialynx turns today’s step-by-step document process into a hub-and-spoke model, with every document connected to the same central decisions, dramatically reducing the time it takes to get a study ready.
When something changes mid-study, teams update it once, and the change flows to every affected document with a full record of what changed. Trialynx also follows global clinical data standards, so other systems can reuse the same information, a building block for real-time trials.
Jim Heil (right), father of Trialynx founder Angie Schwab, accepts the MN Cup 2026 Top Startup from Southern Minnesota prize, sponsored by the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, on September 14, 2026, while the Trialynx team was in Boston for DPHARM.
Proven Across 56 Real-World Studies
Across 56 real-world evidence studies, Trialynx cut the time to a first protocol draft by 94%, from an average of 18 days to about one day, and reduced revision cycles by 75%, from more than four rounds to one.
“Working with Trialynx is a game changer. They enabled us to launch all of our trials weeks ahead of schedule,” said Ramesh Meesala, Chief Executive Officer of Cliniv.
Zero to Digital in 90 Days
“After more than 20 years in clinical research, I can tell you the technology is the easy part,” Schwab said. “The real challenge is change management and helping teams embrace new ways of working together. That is why we created Zero to Digital in 90 Days, a safe place for teams to experiment with digital trials using their own studies, templates and workflows.”
Sponsors and CROs interested in learning more about Trialynx can reach out at trialynx.io.
About Trialynx
Trialynx™ is the digital infrastructure for launching real-time clinical trials. Founded in 2023 and based in Minnesota, Trialynx guides study teams step by step so they can design their trials with confidence, turning every critical decision into a single source of truth that keeps documents, teams and plans aligned. Trialynx is the winner of DPHARM Idol Disrupt 2026, the MN Cup 2026 Southern Minnesota Top Startup award and the 2026 SCOPE/TransCelerate Digital Protocol Review Challenge. Learn more at trialynx.io.
