What is Diviner?
Mark Gordon, CEO/Founder
Diviner uses collective intelligence methodology and biopharma professionals’ expertise to forecast probabilities of success for clinical-stage drugs. We plan to monetize this capability by creating biotech funds. Our first area of focus is small-cap, clinical-stage biotechs whose valuations are highly dependent on a small number of clinical trial outcomes.
We ran our first proof of concept (POC) in a one-day event in September 2020 to experiment with gathering a diverse set of industry professionals and engaging them in forecasting clinical-stage outcomes. A summary of that exercise is here. Although the purpose of the first POC was simply to see how participants would engage, we had some promising signals of efficacy. We forecasted the outcomes of seven clinical-stage events, one FDA approval, and which COVID vaccine would be first. Three of the clinical-stage events have been announced: We had assessed two as unlikely to progress, and they haven’t, another as unlikely to progress, and it has. And we predicted that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine would be the first COVID vaccine approved by the FDA. It was.
Our Proof of Concept
Jason Kralic, Co-Founder
POC2 is much more extensive, designed to assess the efficacy of our prediction methods by forecasting the outcomes of approximately thirty Phase 2 and/or Phase 3 trials over a period of several months.
We are including many more participants who invest time and work together, via both a wiki-type collaboration zone and in live Zoom sessions, to put the power of proven collective intelligence methods to work via our own unique methodology. POC2 will establish a forecasting track record and evaluate those predictions via biotech stock investments.
Diviner Methodology
Dan Mytelka PhD MBA, Head of Methodology
* Once we have active funds, further down the line, Diviners will no longer be able to trade on their own, although they will be able to invest in the funds.
How will the upside pool be allocated?
Anthony Japour MD
Member of Diviner’s Forecaster Network
How much time is required?
Martin Eglitis PhD
Member of Diviner’s Forecaster Network
That’s up to you! You will do better and earn more points in the Upside Pool if you put more into the exercise. However, you can estimate 2-3 hours per week during each 2 week forecasting exercise in which you choose to participate.
Some of the participants will choose to take the lead in shepherding a drug through the review process. Others will choose to do research to inform the assessment and asynchronous discussion. These optional additional activities will earn more points in the Upside Pool.
You’d be surprised at what you’d be able to contribute, even if you aren’t a therapy area or other deep expert. Collective intelligence research shows five ways people can be useful in contributing to strong predictions.
The domain expertise needs to be diverse to achieve the most predictive forecasts.
Expertise needed?
Michael Dombeck MBA MPP, Advisor
We are selecting drugs from a list of small-cap, pre-revenue biotech drugs with key Phase 2/3 trials expected to announce their results in the next few months.
We prepare background materials to include an overview of the company, the drug, and the specific trial outcomes we are planning to predict, along with success rate benchmarks.
Participants review the background material and participate in discussion and sharing of insights via a combination of online work on their own time and live Zoom sessions.
Forecasters make individual predictions based on their judgment and experience and from knowledge gained through the process.
Diviner analyzes the predictions of the forecasters and aggregates them in a Diviner forecast.
We will share a more detailed overview of the confidential Diviner Method with participants who have signed the POC agreement.
Participants are asked to sign a POC participation agreement which allows them to earn points in the equity pool in exchange for agreeing to:
Participation agreement
John Keenan, Project Management