Health and research technology company uMed has raised £9.8 million in its latest funding round.
The London company has been backed by Albion Capital and other venture capital investors to boost researcher and patient participation in clinical trials.
Clinical research is a vital tool for innovation and enhancing patient care. In the UK this area of research is struggling, with the number of clinical trials initiated down 41% between 2017/18 and 2021/22.
uMed tackles this issue by giving healthcare providers greater access to, and involvement in cutting-edge research and care improvement activity without additional cost or burden. The uMed platform engages researchers with suitable patients and collects prospective data to answer key clinical questions, while also enabling GPs to generate additional revenue for their practice.
Since its 2020 seed round, uMed has signed up more than 450 UK GPs and has successfully recruited over 6,000 patients to clinical studies. It has enabled a number of successful nationwide studies to take place across the UK, including a study into identifying risk factors of Parkinson’s Disease.
The funding will extend the reach of uMed’s landmark cohort programme in Parkinson’s Disease, Access-PD, to thousands of patients globally by the end of 2023. Planned expansion into North America will build on uMed’s UK successes and will be spearheaded by a partnership deal with digital healthcare company Innovaccer, opening up access to over seven million patients across the USA. This follows uMed’s inaugural Canadian partnership with clinician-led HealthTech MCI Onehealth.
“We developed the uMed platform to help healthcare professionals easily and efficiently run patient research and targeted care programmes at scale,” said Dr Matt Wilson, uMed’s founder and CEO. “Our ground-breaking patient cohorts give researchers access to unique data and insights, accelerating development and access to new therapies, while dramatically reducing the cost of finding, engaging and collecting prospective data from patients.”
Molly Gilmartin, investment manager at Albion, said: “We are thrilled to continue partnering with Matt Wilson and his team to enable extensive clinical research, which has historically taken decades and cost millions of pounds. uMed’s technology is uniquely positioned to truly revolutionise how clinical research is conducted globally.
“The latest round of funding will continue to support the company’s US expansion and will further accelerate the next phase of growth on a path to global category leadership.”