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With $33 million in fresh funding, Atropos Health — a startup using data from past patients’ cases to help doctors make better decisions and pharma companies speed up research and development — is planning to invest in its technology and expand its life sciences customer base.
The Series B round was led by Valtruis and included new investors McKesson Ventures, Touchdown VC and Merck GHI Fund, the startup said Thursday. Existing investors Breyer Capital, Emerson Collective and Presidio Ventures also participated. To date, Atropos has raised about $54 million. It did not disclose its valuation.
Atropos, which was founded in 2019 after spinning out of a Stanford University research project, is trying to broaden the evidence base used to inform medical decisions, co-founder and CEO Brigham Hyde told Endpoints News.
The company says it uses AI and automation to produce research-grade studies based on more than 200 million anonymous patients’ medical records, all in just a few minutes. A similar quality study would take weeks or months and require lots of labor and expense without Atropos’ technology, Hyde said. The company has performed 10,000 observational studies, some of which have gone on to be peer-reviewed and published, based on questions posed by clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and life sciences companies, he said.
Hyde gave an example of how Atropos’ technology is used. His wife, a radiation oncologist, recently questioned whether patients with bladder cancer should receive radiation instead of having their bladders removed, which is the standard of care. Atropos ran an analysis and found, in three minutes, that there was no difference in outcomes between patients treated by those methods. The study, which is now being refined for publication, could lead to fewer patients losing their bladders and better outcomes, Hyde said.
“We believe very firmly that if you have more evidence for care that’s personalized to those patients, it actually improves outcomes,” he said.
Meanwhile, pharma companies can use Atropos to develop therapies, simulate clinical trials to ensure they succeed, and bring their products to market more quickly, Hyde said.
“Let’s take less time to get drugs approved, let’s de-risk it, and once they’re out there, let’s also make sure clinicians have the evidence to know where our product should be used,” Hyde said.
Atropos said it struck agreements with McKesson and Cencora (formerly AmerisourceBergen) to bring its platform to oncology and specialty care. The company already works with five out of the 10 largest pharmaceutical companies, Hyde said. Atropos also wants to form more partnerships with companies that work with many different providers, so its tools can be distributed widely.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated after the company provided revised fundraising numbers after publication.