Why Drug Trials Take 12 Years and How Biorce Cuts That to 4 - Clara Bernardes
Innovation and Private Capital x auliumShow Notes
Bringing a drug to market in Europe costs as much as a typical pre-seed round just to comply with AI regulations — before a single line of code is written or a patient enrolled. That bottleneck is slowing innovation at the exact moment AI could cut clinical trial timelines by two-thirds.
Clara Bernardes co-founded Biorce in 2024 to automate the clinical trial lifecycle from phase one to phase three, compressing what typically takes 11–12 years into four or less. The conversation traces the origin story — a terminal melanoma diagnosis, a desperate search for trial access, and the realization that the industry's own infrastructure was the obstacle. What followed was a rapid build: four co-founders, three funding rounds, over $60 million raised, and 130 hires in under eighteen months. The discussion moves through the technical challenge of teaching AI not just to spot anomalies but to understand *why* they happened, the stark regulatory and economic differences between Europe and the US, and the decision to open an R&D hub in Austin to access talent at scale. The episode also touches on enterprise sales cycles, the mechanics of protocols and amendments, and why some of the biggest names in European tech decided to back a clinical AI play.
🧬 Why detecting anomalies in trial data is easy, but understanding scientific correctness is the hard part 💶 The cost gap: how decision-maker salaries shape deal economics in the US versus Europe 🚀 Beating revenue targets in three months and again by mid-year — what extreme velocity looks like 📉 Time and resources, not product-market fit, as the primary constraint at hypergrowth scale 🏛️ Why European AI regulation creates a paradox: safety at the expense of pace
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About Clara Bernardes [Co-founder of Biorce]:Co-founder of Biorce, an AI company building tools to accelerate clinical trial design. She studied Law and Nutrition Sciences in Lisbon, spent a decade working in clinical trials, and has raised three rounds in 12 months, culminating in a $52.5 million Series A. Biorce won the 4YFN award at MWC Barcelona in March 2025 and is scaling from 30 to a target of 250 employees by year-end.About Aulium:Aulium is a video show exploring Innovation and Private Capital, hosted by Thomas Viguier.Connect with us:➡ Aulium on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/aulium➡ Thomas Viguier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tviguier/
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