12 Questions with Dr Michelle Longmire

As the co-founder and chief executive officer of Medable, Dr Michelle Longmire is mission-driven to accelerate the development of new therapies for disease. A Stanford-trained physician-scientist, Dr Longmire witnessed first-hand the critical barriers to drug development – including the time and costs associated with clinical trial participation. She founded Medable to pioneer a new category of clinical trial technologies that remove traditional roadblocks to participation and radically accelerate the research process.

What was your background prior to this role, and how did it prepare you for the work you do now?

I learned a lot of the key qualities of being a CEO from team sports and my experience conducting research at Stanford. It was the perfect combination that directly applies to leading the team at Medable, with a strong focus on our mission to get effective therapies to patients faster, plus the relentless drive and working as a team to reach our goals.

I truly believe all extraordinary work is achieved by empowering your team. As a CEO, I think the most valuable thing I can do to empower my team is to provide a clear vision of what’s possible and where our goal is to evolve drug development to improve human health and lives.

The mission was born while I was conducting research on systemic sclerosis at Stanford. I was looking at identical twins with this disease to try and understand differences in identical twin pairs – why one would have the disease and the other one wouldn’t, or why one would not have as severe clinical manifestation. Facing the hurdle of trying to enrol patients who had the unique requirements of being identical twins with this rare disease, I realised there has to be a better way to overcome the limitations of getting participants to Stanford to participate.

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