Radicle Science launches second generation of clinical trial engine

Health tech innovator Radicle Science has launched Radicle Discovery Gen 2, the next version of its Proof-as-a-Service platform designed to enable non-pharmaceutical health and wellness products to clinically prove their claims.

Combining rigorous clinical trials, AI, data, and crowdsourcing to validate the effects of natural products across diverse populations, the platform is pegged as a “fundamental upgrade to what brands can expect from a clinical trial.”

“Radicle Discovery Gen 2 isn’t just an upgrade — it’s a complete reimagination of clinical research, starting with the end in mind,” says Dr. Jeff Chen, co-founder of Radicle Science.

“We’ve engineered an intelligent platform that combines cutting-edge AI, validated biomarkers, and exponentially flexible trial designs to deliver the kind of speed, precision, and depth the wellness industry has never seen.”

Pelin Thorogood, co-founder, adds: “This is more than innovation, it’s a revolution in how natural products are clinically validated and precision targeted to subpopulations. Our clients demanded more. Gen 2 delivers exponentially more — without the exponential cost.”

Redefining clinical research

Radicle Discovery Gen 2 is a new clinical trial platform for natural products, designed to overcome the shortcomings of traditional contract research organizations. 

This service offers extensive customization to speed up product claims, improve success rates, and provide more comprehensive insights.

Radicle Discovery Gen 2 rigorous clinical trials, AI, data, and crowdsourcing to validate the effects of natural products across diverse populations.Gen 2 facilitates research in numerous health categories, offering detailed customization for factors like outcomes, participant eligibility, study length, and statistical methodology.

Radicle’s adaptable design allows for trial flexibility to meet various scientific or marketing objectives. The platform supports double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trials for developing strong product claims.

It also enables open-label trials for brands to test different packaging, usage instructions, flavors, or product forms. Additionally, brands can use in-home use tests for consumer sensory or impression research.

Expanded functionalities

The platform offers expanded physical biomarkers, now offering nearly 100 blood, saliva, stool, and vaginal biomarkers with clinically validated direct-to-consumer testing kits.

It has also broadened its offerings of digital biomarkers and wearables. Radicle’s menu of digital measurements includes Bluetooth scales, smartphone-based cognition tests, AI-analyzed facial scans, and integrations with wearables, including Apple Watch, Oura Ring, and FitBit.

“Smart tech tools capture a vast amount of rich and real-time health data that has been largely unavailable in traditional clinical research,” highlights the company.

Precision data gathering with AI aids

Radicle Discovery Gen 2 replaces old, inflexible contract research models with a more “intelligent, customizable, and insights-rich” approach.

Trials conducted on the platform include Radicle’s proprietary Precision Insights analytics at no extra cost. These insights, generated from extensive and diverse trial data combined with advanced biostatistics and AI cluster analysis, provide scientific and commercial teams with actionable intelligence.

This intelligence details how a product’s benefits, usage, consumer perceptions, and side effects vary across different groups of people. These unique insights support evidence-based personalization and targeting, increasing return on investment for both precision health strategies and marketing campaigns.

To manage its large-scale trials, which often involve thousands of participants, Radicle is enhancing its research team with AI agents. These agents help with participant communication and engagement, improving responsiveness, scalability, and consistency.

Trials conducted on the platform include Radicle’s proprietary Precision Insights analytics at no extra cost.By taking on time-consuming coordination tasks, AI agents allow Radicle’s human scientists to focus on more complex activities, thereby improving the trial experience without losing the human element.

Additionally, Radicle uses AI to learn from its aggregate, anonymized clinical dataset, which is built through industry collaborations. This dataset represents the largest pool of clinical evidence on wellness products, highlights the company.

Streamlining clinical research

Companies are constantly evolving how they collect clinical information for product claims, thanks to new advancements that improve the participant experience and data collection process.

In this dynamic field, US-based People Science offers decentralized, “rigorous clinical science” through its mobile app, Chloe, which allows people to join a clinical trial at home. People Science designs protocols, recruits participants, oversees, and conducts studies. It mails a product and testing equipment to participants’ homes, where they track their progress through Chloe.

Also moving to scale more inclusive clinical trials, Rousselot launched its own mobile app for its hydrolyzed cartilage matrix supplement. People do not have to physically travel to a central location to participate in its studies, which enables data collection from groups who might be underrepresented in clinical research, including single parents, people with mobility issues, or the elderly.

Meanwhile, researchers are underscoring the importance of interdisciplinary nutrition trials for a more holistic approach to health studies. In the UK, scientists at Northumbria University in Newcastle, UK, gather inputs from six different labs to complement their research — brain, sports, vascular, sleep, omics, and biology.