NuMedii Inc. raised $3.5 million this week in a Series A funding led by Claremont Creek Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, with participation by Life Science Angels and others.
NuMedii raised this oversubscribed initial round to further develop its proprietary technology and prepare its first three internal drug development programs for clinical testing.
The company was spun out of biomedical informatics researcher Dr. Atul Butte’s lab at Stanford University in 2008 with the idea of pairing existing drugs with new disease applications, using computers instead of wet labs.
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“NuMedii’s drug development approach is extremely capital efficient and is designed to be much more successful in bringing new therapeutics to patients. We are excited to have the backing of investors and advisors who have a track record of successfully establishing life science companies and who support our long term vision for our company,” said NuMedii co-founder and CEO, Gini Deshpande, PhD.
By leveraging large amounts of life sciences data correlating disease information with drug data, NuMedii’s technology predicts which drugs will be most effective in treating a particular disease. NuMedii then translates this information into novel therapeutic candidates.
NuMedii signed its first product-focused deal last fall with specialty pharmaceutical company Aptalis Pharma, which develops therapies for cystic fibrosis and gastrointestinal disorders.
The company is also expanding its board of directors to include Ted Driscoll, PhD, Brad Webb, PhD and Samuel Saks, MD. Driscoll ileading the digital healthcare team at Claremont Creek Ventures and will serve as chairman. Webb is a venture partner at Claremont Creek. Saks is a board-certified oncologist and founder of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He also has been an advisor to NuMedii since 2011.
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“I believe NuMedii’s technology is an example of the type of innovation that is required to fundamentally address the constant failure plaguing the drug development industry,” he said.
NuMedii also announced the appointment of Craig Webb, Ph.D as its Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Webb spent the past thirteen years developing an integrated program in translational medicine as one of the founding scientists at the Van Andel Research Institute in Michigan.
Butte received a Champion of Change award for Open Science from the White House last week.
