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Funding for rare diseases startup

21 October 2019

The article at a glance

Healx, a company that seeks breakthroughs for rare diseases through artificial intelligence, said it had secured $56 million in Series B financing, …

Healx, a company that seeks breakthroughs for rare diseases through artificial intelligence, said it had secured $56 million in Series B financing, led by venture capital firm Atomico and joined by Intel Capital, Global Brain and btov Partners. All previous investors also participated in the round.

Funding for rare diseases startup

The funding will be used to develop Healx’s therapeutic pipeline and to launch its global Rare Treatment Accelerator programme, developed in close partnership with patient communities to identify clinic-ready treatments for rare diseases within 24 months.

Healx was previously on the Accelerate Cambridge programme run by the Entrepreneurship Centre at Cambridge Judge Business School. The company raised £10 million in a Series A funding round last year and is soon to launch clinical trials to test a multiple treatment combination for autism.

Co-founder and CEO Dr Tim Guilliams said: “The size of this Series B financing, especially this quickly after our Series A round last year, is an endorsement of the value of our platform and the pace at which we have developed. It allows us to scale our impact with the launch of our Rare Treatment Accelerator programme and to progress into clinical trials.”

Healx aims to advance 100 rare disease treatments towards the clinic by 2025. According to Dr Guilliams, there are 7,000 rare diseases known today that affect around 400 million patients worldwide, with around 95 per cent of them without approved treatments.