Zealic Health, Coriqa Clinical partner to support 'proactive' clinical trials

Two Research Triangle area life sciences companies are teaming up to make clinical trials run more efficiently.

Zealic Health of Raleigh and Coriqa Clinical of Holly Springs announced a strategic partnership focused on shifting clinical trials from “reactive oversight to proactive intervention and prevention,” ultimately saving client companies time and money in bringing new therapies to market.

“This partnership is exciting because the strengths are genuinely complementary,” said Chuck Piccirillo, chief executive officer and founder of Zealic Health. “We know this industry, we know each other and we are all passionate about changing what is possible in clinical research. While the partnership is new, the techniques, methodologies and technologies behind it have been proven in other industries and are now being brought to life sciences.”

The partnership brings together complementary strengths across AI, digital technology, clinical operations, engineering, science and real-world trial execution, the companies said. It will build on an established working relationship between the companies’ founders and decades of life science experience.

“Clinical trials do not need more complexity; they need better ways to turn information into action while the work is happening,” said Wendy Tomlinson, chief executive officer and principal consultant at Coriqa Clinical. “Our role at Coriqa is to bring the operational reality into that equation, so technology supports the people executing the trial and helps them get it right the first time.” 

At the center of the partnership is the premise that clinical researchers should not have to wait until after something goes wrong to act.

“Too much of the industry still operates through the rearview mirror,” the companies said in announcing their partnership. “An error occurs during execution. Monitoring finds it later. A query surfaces it. An audit documents it. By then, the opportunity to prevent the issue has passed, and what began as a small execution error can create rework, protocol deviations, data-quality concerns and compliance risk. More importantly, late correction can put critical downstream milestones at risk. Data cuts, evaluations, database lock, and regulatory submissions cannot simply absorb avoidable delays because an issue was discovered weeks or months after it occurred.”

Zealic and Coriqa are focused on moving that point of intervention upstream, using digital technology and operational intelligence to identify risks while work is happening, detect errors as they are introduced, and intervene before they become deviations.

That shift requires closing some of the most persistent gaps in clinical research: the gap between new technology and its real-world application, and the gap between what a clinical trial protocol requires and what happens in day-to-day execution.

“Closing those gaps takes more than technology alone,” the companies said. “It requires understanding how people, processes, systems, clinical requirements and operational realities intersect in the real world. By bringing those perspectives together, Zealic and Coriqa aim to make sophisticated technology easier to apply while reducing complexity for the people responsible for executing clinical trials.”

The companies’ shared goal is to improve execution quality, reduce unnecessary rework and delay, and create a more reliable path to bringing new therapies to patients.

Local connections

Zealic Health was co-founded in 2016 by Piccirillo and Casey Bennett, the company’s chief operating officer. The company builds AI-powered solutions including SiteOS, which brings real-time deviation prevention to clinical research, and MindfulOS, which helps psychedelic therapy organizations translate complex readiness and treatment requirements into more consistent execution.

Previously, Piccirillo served as senior vice president for information technology and development at Raleigh-based PRA Health Sciences, a global contract research organization (CRO) acquired by ICON in 2021.

Bennet has expertise in biochemistry and eClinical systems and previously worked at several Triangle-area life science companies including Almac Group, YPrime, PPD, Quintiles, BD and eTrials Worldwide. 

Coriqa Clinical is a clinical operations consultancy that helps sponsors, CROs, sites and site networks improve how clinical trials are planned and executed. The firm brings operational experience across the clinical research ecosystem, with a focus on identifying execution gaps, reducing friction and translating strategy into practical, sustainable improvements.

Coriqa was founded this year by Tomlinson and Founding Consultant Jessica Young. 

Tomlinson previously held senior roles at several Triangle-area CROs including ClinTrial Research, PPD, ICON and PRA Health Sciences, where she worked for Piccirillo. Young previously worked with Tomlinson at ClinTrial Research.

Read more about clinical trials:

1. New partnership aims to improve access to rare disease trials, includes NC clinical research site | North Carolina Biotechnology Center
2. Worldwide Clinical Trials to acquire Catalyst Clinical Research | North Carolina Biotechnology Center
3. Second Annual CRO Summit addresses cost, complexity and collaboration in clinical trials | North Carolina Biotechnology Center