A letter from our co-founders
Since the dawn of civilization, humans have turned to natural medicines for healing. Many such remedies are still used by billions around the world. Yet lack of funding, slow speed, and high cost of clinical trials—not to mention the risk aversion of traditional institutions—stand in the way of legitimate research on these treatments.
Worse still, the small size and strict criteria of traditional trials significantly reduces their relevance to real-world heterogeneous populations. The result is a lack of evidence on natural medicine safety and efficacy that limits their full potential as affordable, accessible treatments for all, while also eroding trust in this massive industry.
No More! Driven by our frustrations with the current ineffective model, and our effort to accelerate our original missions when we established the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative and the Wholistic Research and Education Foundation, we joined forces to co-found Radicle Science. We knew we could plummet the cost and time of research by at least 10x, while still generating rigorous health data, if we;
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avoid federal funding restrictions
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bypass institutional bureaucracy
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eliminate physical infrastructure
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run our studies in a virtual, direct to consumer, crowdsourced fashion.
Bringing diversity and inclusion to the forefront
Just as importantly, we saw this as a unique opportunity to bring much needed equity and diversity into medical research.
The unprecedented scale and reach of our studies finally enables inclusion of diverse ethnicities, genders, age groups, behavioral habits, and pre-existing health conditions to move us closer to personalized medicine for the population at large.
"Radicle Science was borne of our innate belief that there is a better way. We believe it is time to create a world where affordable natural medicines are trusted by patients, recommended by physicians, reimbursed by insurance, and are used as widely as pharmaceutical drugs."
At its core, Radicle is a Rebellion against the status quo of healthcare and research and a movement towards democratized, personalized medicines that have the potential to deliver wellbeing for all future generations. That’s the world we are creating, and we want you to join us. It’s not a crazy idea. It’s a Radicle one.
