London-based uMotif, a company that provides a scalable patient-centred data capture platform for modern research, announced that it has raised $25.5M (approximately €23.80M) in a fresh round of funding. The investment came from a fund managed by New York-based investment firm Athyrium Capital Management.
The company’s patient-facing technology captures data for clinical research initiatives and also captures compliant and validated patient-generated e-consent, eCOA, ePRO, PROM, and PREM data for researchers and clinicians. This allows pharmaceutical companies to capture ‘rich’ health data across a range of conditions.
About the investor
Founded in 2008, Athyrium Capital Management claims to be a specialised asset management company that invests in the global healthcare sector. The firm advises funds with over $4.6B in committed capital. Athyrium invests across all healthcare verticals, including biopharma, medical devices and products, healthcare-focused services, and healthcare information technology.
Mark Kavulich, Partner at Athyrium, says, “Over recent years, we have seen how the global eClinical market is significantly growing and quickly changing. uMotif’s approach to engaging patients in research is truly differentiated, patent-protected and built on technology ready to scale. We’re excited to be joining the uMotif journey and supporting significant scale up in the coming years.”
Changing clinical research for the better
After the Covid-19 pandemic, digitisation has been on the cards for almost all businesses, including the life sciences industry. It is increasingly adopting digital approaches for clinical and real-world research, including decentralisation of trials.
And this is where London-based uMotif looks to operate.
Founded in 2012 by Bruce Hellman and Ben James, and currently led by CEO Steve Rosenberg, uMotif’s software provides pharmaceutical, biotech, medtech, and Contract Research Organisation (CRO) clients with an ‘engaging’ patient data capture experience. The company claims to deliver high rates of data capture, patient retention, data quality, and delivery speed to help achieve faster and better trials.
The company mentions in a statement that in an immunology study, uMotif’s software engaged and retained participants so effectively that the data capture timelines were reduced by 33 per cent, generating new insights faster.
Currently, the software is deployed in over 30 countries globally, including China and Japan. The company has worked with some of the world’s top pharma and biotech companies and CROs, including AstraZeneca, Abbvie and Syneos, providing insights and ‘high’ data capture rates in excess of 90 per cent.
Capital utilisation
uMotif says that the funds will help the company to further expand internationally as well as develop its technologies, including patent-protected solutions for pain, clinical outcome and symptom tracking.
In 2021, the company expanded its operation in the US with the help of its US-based healthcare investor, and now looks to grow its workforce in the field of sales, marketing and service delivery.
Steve Rosenberg, says, “We are delighted to welcome Athyrium to support our journey to be the most patient-centric platform for research. I truly believe that clinical research must put patients first, delivering more engaging research studies. With this investment from Athyrium, I’m excited to grow our global capabilities to better serve our sponsors, partners and – most importantly – the patients we help take part in research.”
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