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ProTrials and tribulations
Women overcome adversity to found downtown biotech business

by Casey Weiss

As a woman wanting to pursue an advanced medical career, Inger Arum received no support from her high school guidance counselor, who said her dreams were unrealistic.

Today Arum, 46, hopes that her successful Mountain View clinical research organization will help pave the way for other female business leaders who are often confronted with the same stereotypes.

Arum and CEO Jodi Andrews founded ProTrials in 1996 to provide staffing and auditing to biotech, medical device, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. The company, headquartered on Castro Street, deals mostly with cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, women's health studies and oncology. Its 75 employees work in Mountain View and Chapel Hill, N.C., and its subcontractors are all over the world.

Arum, the company's president, said ProTrials fills a niche because often companies do not have enough employees to finish complicated projects and research. She said the firm originally worked mostly on HIV research, but has since expanded its services.

"We have done a lot of cutting-edge work, where you feel like you are making a difference," said Arum of the HIV research. "To be able to work on a vaccine that could truly be the answer, that was an exciting way to start."

The Women's Business Enterprise National Council certified ProTrials last month as a women-owned business, and in 2007 the San Jose Business Journal chose the company as one of top 50 women-owned businesses in Silicon Valley.

But Arum says her success story is still rare.

"In our industry, it is surprising to me how few biotech companies are managed and founded by women," she said.

The company currently has more female than male employees, and staffers participate in the breast cancer walk and donate to charities that benefit women. Arum said it's important to have a gender balance in the work place, and that empowering women has an impact on the economy.

"I think it is economic power," she said. "Women bring a different perspective."

Andrews and Arum, who both have children, say balance and honesty are two of the company's core values. Arum says she is building an environmentally friendly house in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and works at home twice at week.

"Luckily, I have a partner who stays at home," she said. "Both Jodi and I are good at leaving our work behind."

"My kids come help me shred things on the weekend. They love that their mom works," she added.

Before founding ProTrials, Arum and Andrews were both working with pharmaceutical companies that relied on contractors for research.

"They were sending us junior staff, and we were training them," Arum said. "We thought, why don't we do this — we could bring in more senior staff."

In her field, too many women hold mid-level managerial positions, she says. She hopes it will be different for her daughter and nieces: "The next generation is more empowered than we were." •

E-mail Casey Weiss at cweiss@mv-voice.com