Healx is a Cambridge-based company that uses the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to discover potential treatments for rare diseases. The startup raised Series B funding of 50.2 million EUR to achieve its goal in the field of medicine and drug technology. The leading investors for this funding are Atomico, Intel capital and btov Partners along with all previous partners. Healx will use these funds to collect data about rare diseases from affected people. Then the company’s AI algorithms and teams of drug discovery experts, including A1 engineers, bioinformaticians and expert pharmacologists, will use the collected knowledge to find potential new ways and treatments for rare diseases.
AI-Powered Medications
In 2014, Dr. Tim Guilliams and Dr. David Brown co-founded the company Healx to reproduce already existent medications and drugs with the speed and power of AI. Healx is working with patients, clinics and drugs altogether to produce new advanced and effective ways for addressing rare diseases. The development to clinic time would be 24 months, a significant improvement on other methods of drug development. Healx has already worked with renowned foundations and studied Fragile X syndrome extensively. Researchers theorise Fragile X is the leading cause of autism.
Streamlining Treatment
Healx uses its Healnet AI platform to predict and diagnose rare diseases. This platform reduces the period to transfer the treatments towards the clinics as short as 24 months.Â
Healx Co-Founder and CEO Dr Tim Guilliams said, “To date, it’s been families and patient groups who have had to become experts in the diseases affecting their loved ones and have often been the ones driving forward the efforts into finding new treatments. With our unique combination of in-house R&D, industry collaborations and now the Rare Treatment Accelerator, we look forward to supporting these groups in their mission.”
100 rare disease treatments by 2025
The company is using advanced technology that is far different from traditional drug discovery methods. Old methodologies took 12-14 years to discover treatments and the time required to move them into clinics was another big problem. According to surveys, around 350 to 400 million people are affected by different rare diseases around the world. This means every one person out of 17 is struggling with a rare disease, and it takes 5-6 years to only diagnose it even in a country like the USA. With the power of AI, Healx is capable of producing faster, safer, smarter and cost-effective drug treatments. The company aims to provide 100 rare disease treatments by 2025.