This article is based on a recent interview done on the Spark Time podcast.
It's never about the technology, or the industry, or the location, really; it's always about humans.
It started, as the best ideas often do, with something personal. Maree Beare’s husband was considering taking part in a clinical trial. The treatment offered value - but the process? Confusing, sluggish, and anything but patient-friendly. Pages of protocols. Gaps in communication. A system clearly not designed for speed, simplicity, or the people it’s supposed to serve.
That experience didn’t just frustrate her, it sparked something.
Fast forward to today: Maree is the founder and CEO of Clinials, an AI-powered platform that’s flipping the script on how clinical trials operate. Less jargon, more clarity. Less inefficiency, more momentum.
The goal isn’t small—it’s to make clinical trials faster, smarter, and radically more humane.
And she’s doing it.
Clinical Trials Are Broken. Everyone Knows It. Maree’s Actually Fixing It.
Yes, clinical trials have a communication problem. For an industry so focused on outcomes, the process itself can feel like a black box. Researchers spend days untangling protocols. Participants are bombarded with legalese and paperwork that doesn’t speak to them, then drop out when confusion sets in.
“People don’t understand the complexities of clinical trials,” Maree says. “So why do we talk to them like they do and then wonder why they don’t stay?”
Clinials tackles that head-on. It's AI translates dense, regulation-heavy documentation into plain-language summaries, multilingual landing pages, and easy-to-navigate pre-screening tools.
The result? More diverse participants. Faster recruitment. Less wasted time across the board.
“Everything becomes structured, clear, and ready to act on,” she says. “That’s when a trial moves faster and smarter.”
Not Replacing the Experts. Empowering Them.
What makes Clinials stand out isn’t just the tech. It’s the restraint.
“Innovation in healthcare needs to move fast but not faster than trust,” Maree points out. “Our AI supports the expert. It doesn’t replace them.”
That shows up in the product: every AI-generated document has a human-in-the-loop review baked in. Every transformation, from raw protocol to readable summary, is traceable. Regulators can see the logic. Patients can follow the journey.
This is what ethical AI looks like in healthtech. Transparent, accountable, and always with the human front and center.
From Wanngi to Clinials: A Founder Evolves
This isn’t Maree’s first startup. Before Clinials, she launched Wanngi, a digital health platform that helped people track and communicate their personal health data. It earned her recognition on Forbes’ list of Top 50 Women-Led Startups Disrupting HealthTech.
But even then, she was already thinking bigger.
“In 2021, I saw the same barriers popping up again: slow processes, fragmented systems, and people being left behind,” she says. That reflection became Clinials.
And unlike many founders, Maree brings the full stack: a background in tech, lived experience in the health system, and a leadership style grounded in clarity, empathy, and action.
Designing for Inclusion From the Start
Clinical research doesn’t work if it only includes some of us.
That’s why diversity, equity, and inclusion aren’t afterthoughts at Clinials, they’re part of the product DNA. Multilingual trial materials. Culturally relevant content. Interfaces that work for small community sites, not just major institutions.
“If your participants don’t reflect the real-world population,” she says, “your results—and your healthcare outcomes—won’t either.”
In other words: inclusive design is not just good ethics. It’s good science.
"Innovation in healthcare must be equitable, or it’s not innovation at all."
Leading While Female: Not Waiting for Permission
Maree doesn’t sugarcoat the reality: biotech still has a long way to go when it comes to female founders. Access to capital, networks, mentors, it’s all tougher.
But she’s not here to wait for doors to open. She builds her own.
“You don’t need to have every qualification before you raise your hand,” she says. “And I actually didn’t.”
Instead, she backed herself. Took up space. Hired other women. Created room for voices that usually get ignored. Because sometimes, just showing up unapologetically is the most powerful move you can make.
And it works. Her unfair advantage? “Connecting technical complexity with real-world human experience.”
That’s not just rare, it’s exactly what healthcare needs.
Done > Perfect
Ask Maree what advice finally clicked after years in the game, and she doesn’t hesitate: “Done is better than perfect.”
“In healthcare, it’s easy to get stuck trying to refine everything,” she says. “But progress, even messy progress, beats perfection every time. Because timing is everything.”
She’s not wrong.
And that mindset, agile, purposeful, relentlessly focused on impact, is baked into how Clinials shows up every day. Testing, learning, improving. Moving clinical research forward, one clear, inclusive step at a time.
Final Thought
Maree - and Clinials - isn’t just building better tools for clinical trials. She’s reshaping what the process feels like for researchers, for patients, and for every stakeholder in between.
The future of clinical research? It’s not just faster.
It’s smarter, clearer, and finally built for the humans inside it.
