Episode
Women get Less Than 2% Of Funding, but This is the HACK! - Dr. Amber Hill
- Published
- Jun 9, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 1960
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Summary
Dr. Amber Michelle Hill spent 14 years inside medical research — as a neuroscientist, in the lab, on the preclinical side, and patient-facing — before she discovered the real reason 90% of clinical trials fail. And it has almost nothing to do with the science. In this Inspiring Women conversation, host Laurie McGraw sits down with the founder and CEO of Research Grid (R.grid), the London-based, VC-backed company she built to take the administrative burden out of clinical trials, speed them up, and make them more diverse and representative of the people the medicines are meant to serve. Research Grid didn't start as Research Grid. It grew out of Movement for Hope, a nonprofit Amber founded during her academic years that brought researchers, artists, and patient advocates together to raise awareness for neurological conditions. When COVID shut the events down and investors passed on the idea, she repurposed the technology — and the hard-won community relationships behind it — into two AI products: Inclusive, which automates everything that happens before a trial starts and expands access to underrepresented patients, and Trial Engine, which automates the back office of the trial itself. Today that network spans 99,000+ communities, 400 million members across 157 countries, and 2,000 health indications — all built by hand, over years, with no bought data, while the company stayed stealth for four years before launching in 2023. Amber breaks down why a single medicine takes 10 to 14 years to go from bench to bedside, why $400 million per trial is burned on admin alone, and how women were once excluded from drug testing entirely. Then she gets brutally honest about raising money as a woman of color in a world where less than 2% of funding reaches female founders — including…