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About ZoraRx Trials

Clinical research, in the places patients already trust.

Our mission is to widen access to clinical research: more people able to take part close to home, studies that enroll faster, and trial participants who better reflect the patients a medicine is for.

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Our story

Built from inside a pharmacy.

ZoraRx Trials was founded by Dr. Cornelius Njoku, a physician and epidemiologist who also owns and runs a specialty and compounding pharmacy in San Antonio. Running a pharmacy every day showed what community pharmacies already have that research needs: trained professionals, controlled storage, careful records, and patients who come back week after week.

What most pharmacies lack is the rest: research training, regulatory systems, a physician investigator and a path to sponsors. ZoraRx Trials provides those pieces, so that a pharmacy can run studies to the same standard as any research site, and patients can take part without leaving their community.

Leadership

The team behind the network.

Experience from research sites, regulators and the pharmaceutical industry, together with years of running a community pharmacy.

Cornelius Njoku, MBBS, MS

Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Cornelius is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of ZoraRx Trials. He sets the company’s strategy and leads its growth, its partnerships with sponsors and CROs, and the build-out of its network of pharmacy research sites across the United States. He is the architect of the ZoraRx operating model: decentralized and hybrid study designs, the framework for qualifying, scoring and activating sites, an ICH E6(R3)-aligned quality management system, and the financial model behind every study.

A pharmacy owner and operator, he leads a specialty and compounding pharmacy in San Antonio with full accountability for its operations, people, licensure, regulatory compliance and quality, including sterile compounding to USP <797> standards. That experience shapes how ZoraRx works with its sites: research built around how a pharmacy actually runs, held to the standards sponsors and regulators expect.

A physician by training (MBBS), he holds a Master of Science in Epidemiology from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. His grounding in epidemiology, biostatistics and clinical research methodology informs the company’s scientific approach, from study feasibility to enrollment planning.

  • MS Epidemiology, Columbia University
  • MBBS, physician
  • Pharmacy owner & operator
  • USP <797> sterile compounding
  • ICH E6(R3) quality systems
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Tracy Fuentes, BS, CCRC

Head of Clinical Trials Operations

A clinical research operations executive with more than 15 years in Phase I–IV trials. As Director of Operations at Discovery Clinical Trials, a multi-site research organization in San Antonio, she ran study operations from feasibility and start-up through enrollment and close-out, grew revenue by 25%, and led quality, corrective action and FDA, sponsor and CRO audit readiness. She has worked on well over 50 sponsor studies, in obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular outcomes, fatty liver disease, asthma and COPD, vaccines including COVID-19 and RSV, and women’s health, after earlier roles at Flourish Research, DM Clinical Research and Worldwide Clinical Trials, including early-phase research management.

  • Certified Clinical Research Coordinator (ACRP)
  • BS Biology, UT San Antonio
  • FDA and sponsor audit readiness
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Eliana Rivera-Burke

Head of Business Development

A clinical research business development executive with more than 20 years building revenue for CROs and research service providers, including PPD and BioTelemetry Research. Most recently Vice President of Global Sales at mdgroup and, before that, Global Head of Client Engagement at GreenLight Clinical, where she grew the new-business pipeline from $7 million to more than $90 million. She closed $25.6 million in new business in six months at PPD, secured $30 million in multi-year alliances at ObvioHealth, and, as a site director, took a new clinical research site from launch to six active trials within months.

  • BS Business Administration, Monmouth University
  • Fluent in Spanish
  • Founding member, COBIO Women in BIO
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Michellore Dannug Aguilar, RMT

Lead Clinical Research Coordinator

A senior clinical research coordinator with 17 years of trial experience at Singapore Health Services (SingHealth), the country’s largest public healthcare group: most recently in its Investigational Medicine Unit, an early-phase research unit, and before that at the National Cancer Centre Singapore. She has coordinated Phase I–IV studies in oncology, endocrinology, infectious disease, renal devices and healthy volunteers, including dose-escalation studies, managing consent, study visits, investigational product, data and source documents, supporting sponsor monitoring, audits and regulatory inspections, and mentoring junior coordinators.

  • Registered Medical Technologist
  • BS Medical Technology, University of Santo Tomas
  • CITI and Singapore GCP certified

Advisors

Senior regulatory and scientific guidance for our network and our sponsors’ studies.

Christian Shenouda, MD

Advisor, Regulatory & Clinical Oversight

A physician-scientist who served as a supervisory medical officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2016 to 2021, leading review teams for drug and device submissions and contributing to FDA guidance on clinical trial design and digital health. Before that he was a supervisory medical officer and investigator at the National Institutes of Health. He now advises pharmaceutical companies on regulatory strategy and the medical oversight of Phase II–IV trials.

  • Former FDA medical officer
  • MD, University College Dublin
  • Board certified, PM&R and Brain Injury Medicine
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Michael Rosol, PhD

Advisor, Scientific Strategy

A drug development leader with more than 20 years in clinical trials and translational science. He has been Chief Medical Officer of Navidea Biopharmaceuticals and Chief Development Officer of Plus Therapeutics, led translational imaging groups at Novartis, and founded Atherion Bioresearch, a clinical research services company he leads as chief executive.

  • PhD Physiology & Biophysics, Boston University
  • Former CMO, Navidea Biopharmaceuticals
  • Novartis
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Principal investigators

A team of physician principal investigators leads the studies at our pharmacy sites: they confirm who is eligible, oversee participant safety and sign off on study records. Physicians who would like to work with them can join our investigator network.

Where we work

A research network across the United States.

Community pharmacies and clinics across Texas, with the network expanding nationwide.

Open nationwide

Across the United States

We welcome pharmacies, clinics and physician investigators from every state, and match each study to sites wherever its patients live.

Headquartered in Texas

A growing Texas network

Our pharmacy sites serve communities across Texas, from major cities to small towns and rural areas. Our corporate offices are in San Antonio and Edinburg.

Diversity & inclusion

Reaching every community

Pharmacies reach Hispanic, Black and other minority communities that are often underrepresented in clinical research, helping sponsors meet their diversity and inclusion goals, with outreach in English and Spanish.

Bring clinical research to the pharmacy counter.

Tell us a little about you, and our team will get back to you to talk through next steps.

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