Great news from our portfolio company Healx: the AI-enabled biotech raised an impressive $47 million Series C round led by R42 Group and Atomico, with strong participation from existing investors including Balderton Capital, Global Brain Corporation and us at b2venture.
Through its proprietary AI drug discovery engine, Healnet, the company is uniquely positioned to bring treatments to the clinic at a fraction of the time and cost of the traditional big pharma approach. This unlocks commercial viability for the treatment of a large proportion of rare diseases.
As a testament to the success of its approach, the company announced that it has received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to proceed with a Phase 2 clinical trial of its lead programme, HLX-1502. The trial will focus on the treatment of adults with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a rare genetic disorder associated with a predisposition to develop multiple benign and malignant tumours affecting approximately 1 in 2,500 individuals.
Healx's drug development pipeline also includes a number of compounds targeting other neurological tumour diseases, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) and neurodevelopmental disorders such as Angelman syndrome.
We couldn't be more excited by the team's amazing progress since our initial investment in 2019, and remain a proud supporter.
cc Gerrit Jurilj 🇺🇦 Sven Eppert Christian Schütz; special thanks Daniel Gutenberg
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