You Might Also Like: Clinical Trialblazers

**Alberto Grignolo** (0:02)
Welcome to Clinical Trial Blazers, a podcast by Paracel Biotech, where we dive deep into the journeys of the industry leaders who are shaping clinical research and biotech innovation. I am your host, Alberto Grignolo. My guest today, Joe von Rickenbach, has spent decades shaping the landscape of clinical research and pharmaceutical development. He has left an indelible mark on how new medicines are discovered, developed, and brought to patients worldwide. In 1982, Joe co-founded Parexel, a global clinical research organization, or CRO. That's right, today's episode hits close to home. In leading Parexel for over three decades, Joe championed the early globalization and digitization of clinical trials and drove the data-driven modernization of trial execution. His strategic vision transformed a startup of two into a global enterprise, fundamentally reshaping the industry.
Since stepping away from his executive role at Parexel in 2018, Joe has remained deeply engaged in the industry as an investor, strategic advisor, and thought leader among other endeavors. He currently serves as a board director of Javara and other companies where he continues to drive innovation in clinical research.
This episode hits close to home for me personally as well. I should mention that Joe hired me in 1992, and I worked at Parexel continuously until my retirement in late 2023
So I had many opportunities to watch Joe lead and to learn from him. He taught me everything I know, but not everything he knows. I look forward to learning more from him today. Joe, welcome to Clinical Trialblazers.

**Joe von Rickenbach** (1:42)
Thank you, Alberto. Terrific introduction. We appreciate it.

**Alberto Grignolo** (1:46)
What was the initial idea that drove you to start Parexel as a company of two? I'll tell the audience that at the time, you were a young man of 28 years of age, an immigrant from Switzerland, a Harvard MBA graduate, and you partnered with a seasoned 55-year-old co-founder, Dr. Anne Saig.
Why Parexel?

**Joe von Rickenbach** (2:06)
I think it was, if you want, an entrepreneurial drive that had ignited this idea.
We didn't really start as a CRO, we actually started as a regulatory consulting company. This opportunity arose, I partnered with Anne, and yeah, I mean, that's what got us going.

**Alberto Grignolo** (2:27)
What did each of you bring to the table as you were beginning this new organization of two?

**Joe von Rickenbach** (2:33)
We were actually a very good team because, well, first of all, we were very compatible personally. She was an amazing technical, scientific, and regulatory expert, but didn't really care about the business side at all. And so, you know, my job basically was the client relations and all the other back office activities that a new business has to face and overcome, and was essentially the operations side. And did that amazingly well. You know, we never really got into each other's hair, if you want, you know, we were just a really good team.

**Alberto Grignolo** (3:14)
So the name Parexel, did you come up with this name? Where does it come from? What's the origin?

**Joe von Rickenbach** (3:19)
It actually is a derivation of Paracelsus. Paracelsus was a Swiss alchemist who lived in during the Renaissance time. And he was a pioneer in medical thinking, basically throwing out the old ideas of Galen, of, you know, that diseases were influenced by fire and earth and stars.
And he believed that agents, even if we can't see them at the time, were the causes of disease. And he actually ran probably the first kind of primitive clinical trial. But I also felt that Paracelsus was not exactly a modern name or, you know, so I kind of changed it a little bit and made it more palatable for the times.

**Alberto Grignolo** (4:08)
So Parexel, as you mentioned, did not start as a CRO. It started as a regulatory consulting firm. Do I get that right?

**Joe von Rickenbach** (4:15)
Yeah, you're correct.

**Alberto Grignolo** (4:16)
So how did it become a CRO in running clinical trials?

**Joe von Rickenbach** (4:21)
Our client base were mainly medium sized and small companies abroad, meaning companies in Germany, in Switzerland, in Italy, in France, and in Japan. Those are basically our original markets.
And we had a pretty good client base. And one pattern that started to emerge was that almost all these companies desired to ultimately register their products in the US and eventually market their products in the US. And almost invariably, they needed a clinical trial or several. And we made those recommendations and they said, this is great, thank you. But where do we, how can we run these clinical trials? And it turns out there was no option. And they asked us, is there a way to do this? And it turned out there wasn't.