Florence Healthcare Welcomes Tarek Sherif to Board of Directors

ATLANTA (October 3, 2021) – Life sciences technology veteran Tarek Sherif joins the board of directors of Florence, the industry leader in remote connectivity in clinical research. Over a 20-year period, Sherif led Medidata from a startup through an IPO, to become the market leader in cloud-based solutions in the life sciences industry. Sherif will help guide Florence’s growth in that same industry. Dassault Systemes acquired Medidata for $5.8B in 2019.

“Our goal is to advance cures by helping more trial site research teams than any other company,” says Ryan Jones, CEO of Florence. “In the first chapter of our story, we made clinical trial sites more efficient, and today 10,000 of them across 44 countries use Florence. We now have a unique opportunity in our next chapter to connect that site community to the full clinical development lifecycle. With Sherif, we’ve added the world’s foremost expert on serving research at scale to meet this challenge.”

Florence’s new phase of growth began last year by serving as a foundational technology in three of the five largest vaccine studies, including the Pfizer phase 2/3 COVID-19 vaccine study. Building on this success, the company expanded its goal to improving trial site efficiency across the entire clinical research process.

“Florence recognizes the importance of placing sites and patients at the center of research,” said Sherif. “The company’s site-first perspective solves a last-mile problem historically overlooked by technology providers in this market. I’m looking forward to working with the exceptional team at Florence to make the world a better place by deploying the best technology where the work of research gets done — the trial site.”

Sherif joins a strong group of industry veterans on the Florence Board on the heels of its recent $80M Series C round including:

• Carla Balch, Spesana, Inc
• Jeff Muir, Fulcrum Equity Partners
• Jon Rosenbaum, Insight Partners
• Peter Sobiloff, Insight Partners
• Ryan Jones, Florence Healthcare
• Andres Garcia, Florence Healthcare