Despite significant technological innovation in computational biology and drug development over the past decades, it still takes 10-15 years to take a drug to market, with over 90% failure rate. One of the main bottlenecks lies in the long duration required for the analysis and submission of clinical trial data.
This is why we are excited to back Verisian, a UK-based startup on a mission to increase the rate at which human health improves by redefining clinical trial analysis and drug approvals. It aims to build out the largest medical code repository by parsing and virtualising study code from clinical trials.
Co-founded by experienced technologists Tomás Sabat Stöfsel (CEO, previously COO/Founding Team Member of Vaticle, the creators of the open source database TypeDB) and Henning Kuich (CTO, previously Senior Computational Scientist at Bayer Pharmaceuticals), the company is building products that empower researchers and regulators to analyze and monitor studies transparently in real-time, leading to improved and safer therapies for devastating diseases.
Tomas Sabat Stöfsel, CEO and co-founder of Verisian comments:
“It’s crazy that to this day, after clinical trials finish and the science is done, it still takes months to years before a drug is available to patients. We believe it should be immediate. That’s why we’re building the infrastructure and tools that change how we analyse clinical trials, leading to faster and better drug submissions in the pharmaceutical industry.”
Henning Kuich, CTO and co-founder, adds:
“Clinical trials are and will remain the bottleneck for advancing human health. They are expensive, take a long time, and are absolutely necessary. They alone ensure efficacy and safety of any health-related product. So the rate at which public health improves is directly correlated with the speed and quality of clinical trials and their analysis. This is what Verisian is all about: increasing the rate at which human health improves.”
Oliver Wirtz, Head of Analysis Standards & Reporting Quality, Bayer and a product development partner emphasises:
“The technology Verisian uses is new and revolutionary: parsing study code and leveraging that is exactly the right way to know what really happened in a study.”
Claire Springett, Statistical Programmer, AstraZeneca, another product development partner adds:
“Verisian is exactly what the pharmaceutical industry has been waiting for, easy traceability of programs and CDISC mappings which will streamline clinical trials for the future.”
On why we invested in Verisian, our partner Tom Wilson comments:
“Even with huge advancements in the space and innovations across the value chain, it still takes too long to bring drugs to market. One of the primary bottlenecks is around clinical trials and managing the huge amounts of data required to obtain the necessary regulatory approvals. We see huge potential for Verisian’s platform to improve the speed, clarity, and reliability of clinical data reporting and in so doing accelerate the time it takes to get drugs to market. Tomas and Henning are the perfect founders to be building this with their ideal combination of relevant startup, technical and domain experience and we’re delighted to have the opportunity to partner with them to lead this first round of funding”
We are excited to lead Verisian’s first funding round, alongside Superseed, Recode Health, Magnetic, and angel investors Paul Forster, Will Neale, Endre Sagi, Naud van der Ven, Loic Veillard Garoz, and Sudhamma Lee. With the fresh funding the company is planning to grow their engineering team; build a first version of their “builder”, to enable pharma to program studies ready for submission; and establish and grow their initial design partnerships with tier-1 pharmaceuticals.
For more information, visit verisian.com.
