Making the future of research more accessible: Circuit Clinical’s innovative approach to decentralized clinical trials

This is the last installment in 2025 for our “Brief interviews with healthcare innovators” series highlighting cutting-edge companies in the Labcorp Venture Fund portfolio. The mission of the Labcorp Venture Fund is to strategically invest in innovative businesses that make healthcare more personalized, accessible and convenient. 

These innovators are using technology to satisfy their mission of improving health system operations and patient experiences while simplifying and reducing the growing duties of physicians, healthcare staff and administrators alike. This month, Bill Haas, senior vice president, northeast division at Labcorp, interviewed Circuit Clinical founder and CEO Dr. Irfan Khan to discuss the company's mission, innovative solutions and impact on patient access and lives.

Circuit Clinical was founded in Buffalo, New York. Their mission is simple but powerful: to make it easier for patients to find and participate in clinical research.

Origination of innovation

Bill Haas: Can you share the story behind the creation of Circuit Clinical?

Irfan Khan: We launched Circuit Clinical to bridge the gap between traditional clinical trial infrastructure and everyday healthcare experiences. As a practicing cardiologist, I saw patients—especially among diverse populations—missing out on life-changing opportunities due to limited access and awareness to clinical trials because research opportunities were often siloed in academic medical centers, leaving most patients and their physicians disconnected from the process. 

I truly believe that research could—and should—be available in the same settings where patients already receive care. That belief, combined with a passion for health equity, inspired me to leave my practice and start Circuit Clinical. We want to make participation in clinical research a standard option in healthcare delivery, not a rare exception.

Bill Haas: That is so inspiring! What specific challenges does Circuit Clinical address in the healthcare system? 

Irfan Khan: We wanted to help the industry conduct faster, more diverse and more patient-friendly trials by tackling the fundamental access gaps in clinical research. Historically,  approximately 3% of U.S. board-certified physicians have served as principal investigators. Additionally, the FDA-regulated investigator workforce is small and unstable—approximately 50% file just one Form 1572 (“one-and-done”). On the patient side, just 7% of U.S. adults report they’ve ever been invited to a clinical trial.  

Moreover, diverse patient populations—especially those in underserved urban and rural areas—remain grossly underrepresented in clinical trials. This results in slower drug development timelines, less representative safety and efficacy data and lost opportunities to advance medical innovation.

We remedy this by integrating research into health systems, primary care and specialty care networks—directly where patients receive their care. This also helps develop the next generation of investigators.

New technology in healthcare 

Bill Haas: Can you describe your innovative solution and its impact? 

Irfan Khan: Circuit Clinical combines clinical trial expertise with on-the-ground operational support, allowing physicians and health systems to offer research opportunities as an everyday part of their healthcare. Our decentralized network of principal investigators supports remote trials, making patient and physician participation more flexible.

Through our physician engagement expertise and centralized operations team, we make it easy for providers to engage potentially eligible patients and for patients to learn about and participate in studies that are highly relevant to their care. The result is a seamless, patient-centered experience that delivers meaningful value to sponsors, providers, health systems and patients alike.

Bill Haas:  What technologies or methodologies do you use to develop your solutions?

Irfan Khan:  Circuit Clinical's approach pairs our clinical expertise with Labcorp's reach in healthcare to deliver a powerful clinical trial solution at scale. Our use of digital engagement tools, electronic health record (EHR) integration, telehealth to promote health equity, remote monitoring and structured data pipelines to help:

• Identify eligible patients
• Streamline study operations
• Manage workflows
• Maintain regulatory compliance

Additionally, we incorporate decentralized trial capabilities including remote monitoring and eConsent to support hybrid and fully virtual studies.

Bill Haas: What makes your solution unique compared to alternatives? 

Irfan Khan: Our model is unique because our team has deep experience in both healthcare and clinical research. Unlike traditional research site networks and academic medical centers, we work directly with health systems and community-based providers to embed research into care delivery.

Additionally, our remote network of principal investigators can support decentralized trials, making it easy for patients to participate, no matter where they reside. This allows us to reach more diverse populations and achieve higher rates of physician engagement and patient enrollment. 

Our network includes over 150 physicians who serve 8.5 million patients. Through our solutions, we improve recruitment diversity and retention rates—all while ensuring compliance and quality.

Bill Haas:  Speaking of compliance, how do you handle reliability and accuracy?

Irfan Khan: Our platform is built with data integrity and security at its core, including HIPAA compliance, role-based access and audit trail tracking. We also follow rigorous quality assurance protocols and regularly validate our technology against industry and other regulatory standards.

We continuously test our algorithms and workflows using real-world clinical scenarios and maintain oversight through our experienced quality assurance and compliance teams. We also solicit feedback from providers, study teams and patients for ongoing system refinement.

How technological innovation enhanced patient access, convenience, care and overall experience 

Bill Haas: How has Circuit Clinical improved patient care and operational efficiency? 

Irfan Khan: We help patients gain access to new therapies that could improve health outcomes by integrating research into care delivery. Meanwhile, health systems benefit by:

• Turning clinical research into a care option
• Improving provider engagement
• Generating new revenue streams
• Creating stronger patient loyalty

Our model also reduces start-up times and administrative overhead, allowing providers to participate in research without disrupting clinical or practice operations.

Bill Haas:  What metrics do you use to measure success? 

Irfan Khan: Circuit Clinical tracks key performance indicators through dashboards and reporting tools in our platform that we review regularly to ensure continuous improvement across several domains:

• Enrollment performance (enrollment rate vs. target rate, retention rate and amount of time for the first patient to be introduced to the trial)
• Diversity metrics (racial and ethnic representation in enrolled patients)
• Provider engagement and satisfaction (number of active investigators)
• Patient satisfaction (feedback during trial participation as well as post-participation surveys, interviews and digital channels)
• Site performance (study start-up time and monitoring findings)

For providers, we also conduct post-study reviews and maintain regular communication with clinical teams to assess satisfaction, surface challenges and inform platform updates. Additionally, we host governance meetings and learning collaboratives to engage stakeholders in developing improvements.

Bill Haas: Can you share any feedback or testimonials? 

Irfan Khan: Certainly! Here are a few testimonials from our users:

1. "Being a community-based provider, I feel it’s important for people like me to be part of clinical research to bring diverse perspectives to the table, help with the recruitment and retention of patients and most importantly, play a critical role in the dissemination and implementation of research findings to effectively help translate the knowledge into practice. Overall, the participation of community-based positions promotes inclusivity, relevance and the ethical conduct of the studies, leading to better healthcare outcomes and improved community health. I feel it’s our responsibility to move innovations forward in medicine and make them accessible at the community level." –Principal Investigator
2. "I’d never participated in anything like this before, but the Circuit Clinical research staff made it so easy. All my questions were answered at every visit. Before taking part in this trial, I had a knee replacement on my left knee. I was interested in finding an alternative to the pain medication that was given for knee pain and this trial gave me that option." –Clinical Trial Participant
3. "This partnership furthers our mission of bringing exceptional health care services to all people—especially those most in need—by bringing investigative treatments to our broad network of community-based health settings while contributing to research that could lead to new medicines and devices becoming more broadly available. With Circuit Clinical's research expertise, we can provide our communities with the access needed to get into those oncology trials in the familiar settings where they already receive their care, allowing us to improve not only survival rates but also their quality of life." –Site Partner Executive Member

The future of innovation in healthcare

Bill Haas: What are your plans for future innovations to your current solution?

Irfan Khan: We plan to continue to enhance our operations by:

• Improving site activation speed
• Providing access to more patients
• Automating patient matching with greater precision
• Expanding decentralized trial capabilities that further integrate research into value-based care environments

We're also investing in AI-driven tools that will enable smarter feasibility assessments and accelerate recruitment. On the operational side, we continue to partner with Labcorp to expand our reach with new health systems and physician groups.

Bill Haas: Beyond your current focus, are there other challenges in healthcare that you’re looking to explore or address?

Irfan Khan:  We’re particularly focused on the intersection of clinical trials and health equity. We’d like to address barriers to participation like transportation, language, digital literacy and trust. We continually explore new collaborations and care models that integrate research into value-based care environments and expand our work in community-based research programs.

Our vision is to make research a more routine and relevant part of healthcare for everyone—not just the few.

Bill Haas: How do you plan to expand your reach and impact? 

Irfan Khan: We hope to deepen partnerships with health systems and expand our research-ready provider network. Specifically, we're prioritizing regions with diverse populations that have limited access to clinical trials.

Bill Haas: Collaboration is so essential. How do partnerships support your growth? 

Irfan Khan: Collaborations are fundamental to our success. We work closely with health systems, contract research organizations (CROs), biopharma sponsors and strategic partners to build trusted networks.

Partnering for innovation

Circuit Clinical’s purpose is about more than trials—it's about transformation. Their approach demonstrates how innovation can drive meaningful change in healthcare. 

By making clinical research more accessible and inclusive, they're paving the way for a more patient-centric future. As we continue to explore innovative solutions in healthcare, we're excited to see how companies like Circuit Clinical will shape the industry.

Collaborating with Labcorp allows health systems and innovators access to the technology, data, capital and expertise needed to scale successful innovation. Together, we can drive continuous improvement and create a more sustainable, efficient and patient-centric healthcare landscape.