Netherlands-based Protyon, a company that guides clinicians towards personalised treatment and enhancing the quality of life for patients, announced on Thursday, May 11, that it has raised €600K in a pre-seed round of funding.
According to Protyon, it aims to help create a future in which every patient’s treatment includes a molecular visualisation of the illness, allowing medical professionals to select the “best” available therapy.
The raised capital will be used to expand Protyon’s technology and create a SaaS business model.
Investors in this round
The investment came from Dutch-based LUMO Labs and NOM, the regional development agency for the northern Netherlands.
Annemieke Wouterse, Investment Manager at NOM, says, “Unfortunately, everybody knows somebody with cancer. The 3D model and algorithm of Protyon help clinicians make the optimal decision for further medication in case of tumor mutation, enhancing patient quality of life and reducing healthcare costs.”
“This startup fits nicely in the strategy of NOM to invest in early-stage Life Sciences & Health propositions,” adds Wouterse.
Enhancing cancer therapy effectiveness
Founded in 2022 by Matthew Groves, Rositsa Jordanova, Hoang Nguyen and Josef Melcr, Protyon provides a service for analysis that looks at the effects of mutations in certain proteins targeted for therapy in lung cancer and uses this research to recommend treatment alternatives.
The healthtech startup, a spin-out of Groningen University and its medical centre (UMCG), develops prediction software based on computational molecular modelling and artificial intelligence (AI).
Rositsa Jordanova, founding partner of Protyon, says, “We aim to empower the clinical decision-making process by providing an automated molecular modeling tool to assess the treatment efficacy on an individual level.”
“Our digital solution is guiding clinicians to choose the best available therapy and enhance the quality of life of lung cancer patients,” adds Jordanova.
According to Protyon, the behaviour of molecules is mimicked by computational molecular modelling, which is already employed in advanced medical techniques like medication creation for individualised treatment.
“Structural biology has been an immensely powerful tool in the generation of new drugs, but surprisingly this same information has not been used in a clinical setting,” says Matthew Groves, Protyon’s chief science officer. “However, the use of knowledge on how mutations impact drug targets on the molecular level has a huge potential impact on treatment choices.”
Protyon claims its use of molecular modelling for guided cancer therapy is distinct from earlier approaches that emphasised chemical research. “The unprecedented predictive power of our solution puts Protyon ahead of its competitors,” adds Groves.
Andy Lürling, LUMO Labs Founding Partner, says, “This technology has already proven to be very effective and complementary to other tools available to clinicians, and it will only get better over time. As its hardware requirements are relatively low, this technology can reach and help large numbers of patients around the world.”
Brief about the investors
LUMO Labs provides opportunities to impact-driven software and smart hardware startups. The current LUMO Fund II is a multi-stage capital fund with an impact focus (pre-seed up to and including series A). To assist its portfolio firms in achieving financial success as well as social traction and impact, it offers a two-year venture-building programme.
Startups that support at least one of the three Sustainable Development Goals of the UN—Sustainable Cities & Communities, Good Health & Well-Being, and Quality Education—are funded by LUMO Labs.
Its investment priorities include blockchain, the Internet of Things, robotics and drones, virtual reality, and augmented reality. The firm also focuses on artificial intelligence and data.
The NOM is the investment and development agency for the Northern Netherlands, which includes Groningen, Friesland, and Drenthe, the three northernmost provinces that together make up the TopDutch economic zone.
The TopDutch area offers digital and green solutions to the world’s problems.
NOM promotes the growth of businesses and jobs in the Northern Netherlands. It gives advice on site selection, encourages investment in the Northern Netherlands, and launches programmes that improve the competitiveness of local businesses. It also offers risk-bearing finance.
