MERIT Executive Spotlight is a series featuring executive team members introducing themselves and explaining why they chose to work in the clinical trials industry and at MERIT.
What is your role at MERIT?
I am a co-founder of and CSO at MERIT. These days I spend my time overseeing the clinical operations of the ophthalmology reading center and our ophthalmic research and development efforts. That means I interact with our sponsors during startup of projects and our grading team for the training part. I also do some grading as a senior reader with the team. I oversee elements of quality control and assist with data analysis at the end of the project. And I get to play with the R&D team developing new endpoints using AI.
What do you like about working at MERIT?
Well, it is always all about the people you work with. From the beginning our company has been blessed with folks that are like shining jewels: committed, enthusiastic, and brimming with great ideas. You know, I am kind of an old guy, and my kids are grown and I started thinking about retiring a few years ago and that just didn’t stick. There are too many fun people and cool things going on here to give that up. It’s also about making a contribution: moving the field forward, advancing science, and helping patients at the end of the day. So, work continues to interfere with my golf game!
Why did you get into clinical research?
I like to say that I am a recovering academic. Earlier in my life I was a retina surgeon, teaching residents and fellows, and doing bench research as well as clinical research. I eventually concluded that one could do more good by advancing clinical research than in a lifetime of clinical practice. My work life evolved to running the reading center at the University of Wisconsin and a little bit of seeing patients in clinic. I also started to understand that the greatest advances in medical research in the current era are occurring in the private sector. The innovative engine that completely revolutionized patient care over the span of my career occurred through smart capitalization of basic science achievements and then bringing them to market. Ultimately, the reading center was working to facilitate the development of these new products through providing metrics to prove efficacy, but also through doing its own research into new and better clinical trial endpoints.
How did you come to co-found MERIT?
MERIT evolved to deal with the unmet challenges of imaging and grading data management. Dr. Yijun Huang and I first collaborated when he led the software development group at Topcon. Later, when he joined us at UW to do advanced imaging analysis research, I became convinced of the potential of technology to solve some of our biggest problems. These problems were not just how to segment OCT scans better, but how to grind out the data from thousands of imaging visits in an efficient and effective manner. The burden of fragmented and disjointed data systems and lack of interoperability between image analysis applications was huge and wasteful and bogged everything down.
Yijun had great ideas about how to build something to bring order to the chaos, and eventually EXCELSIORTM software was born. We took on our first project many years ago and it has been quite a rocket ride since then. This has always been a huge team effort, and I have long admired Yijun’s ability to harness the talents of many into a coherent organization that gets it done.
What do you do in your free time?
My wife Jane and I live in a condo on the shores of Lake Mendota in Madison. We have three kids, two of whom live in Madison, and one is in Chicago. Fortunately, they don’t seem to mind spending time with us on occasion. In the summer we boat and paddle. Jane and I ride our bikes around Madison all summer taking in the free concerts, festivals, and the Farmer’s Market. In the winter, we hunker down and watch a lot of Netflix and UW Badger basketball. . . but only when they are winning.
Connect with Dr. Danis on LinkedIn