6 years ago

Healx Secures $56 Million Series B to Accelerate Rare Disease Treatments with AI

  • Healx, a Cambridge, U.K.-based startup using AI to help discover new treatments for rare diseases, has raised $56 million in Series B funding

  • The round was led by London-based VC firm Atomico, with participation from Intel Capital, Global Brain, and btov Partners

  • Healx plans to use the funding to develop its "therapeutic pipeline" and launch its global Rare Treatment Accelerator programme, which will partner with patient groups to make rare disease drug discovery more efficient

  • The company aims to discover new treatments and move them toward clinic within 24 months, significantly faster than the status quo

  • Healx's technology is data-driven and "hypothesis-free", and it focuses on rare genetic diseases, maximizing the value of already-approved drugs.

      • ProblemHealthcare

      "There are over 7,000 rare diseases affecting 400 million people worldwide, with 95% lacking an approved treatment. The traditional drug development process is expensive, time-consuming, and has a high failure rate, making it particularly challenging for rare diseases with small patient populations."

      Solution

      "Healx uses AI to repurpose existing drugs for rare diseases, aiming to discover and develop new treatments much faster than traditional methods. They leverage a biomedical knowledge graph and a hypothesis-free approach to predict drug combinations and accelerate clinical trials. This approach focuses on maximizing the value of already-approved drugs, making it more cost-effective and efficient for rare disease research."

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