Sano Genetics streamlines clinical trials thanks to $11.4 funding

Sano Genetics has raised $11.4m in a new funding round to help power a revolution in precision medicine by deploying artificial intelligence to help streamline the clinical trial process.

The Cambridge-based company is building a platform for precision medicine clinical trials, which it hopes will accelerate the process for bringing new drugs to market. It will leverage AI to manage all aspects of clinical trials.

The funding round was led by Plural with participation from MMC Ventures, Episode 1 and Seedcamp. It brings the total raised by the company to $22m, to help meet the huge demand it is seeing for its product.

According to the company, in 2023 alone it experienced five times ARR growth year-on-year, doubled its headcount, and expanded into the pharmaceutical market working with four of the top 20 pharma companies.

The company has combined genetic testing, recruitment and long-term engagement into a single platform, which is helping to speed up enrolment and simplify operations for precision medicine teams.

Traditionally, medical trials can be complex and time-consuming for both patients and the companies running the trials. According to the British Research Panel, patient recruitment is the biggest challenge, with only about one in five clinical trials finding enough participants in the predefined time frame. This means delays in finding new and potentially better treatment options, which could make a difference to people’s lives.

The Sano Genetics platform connects patients across four countries: the UK, the US, Australia and Canada. It can provide a digital matchmaking service for conducting clinical trials which is supporting customers to quickly and easily load their new trial onto the platform. Sano Genetics assists with the recruitment of suitable patients – claiming to be able to onboard participants up to three times faster than traditional methods.

Patrick Short, co-founder and CEO of Sano Genetics, said: “Precision medicine is transforming how we think about and approach healthcare, and clinical trials are the bedrock of precision drug development.

“In the past 12 months, we’ve scaled up our capacity to hold three times more trials than the year before and launched our first programme supporting families affected by ALS. I’m so pleased with everything the team has achieved so far and this new funding will help us to integrate LLMs and other AI tools to drive more productivity. This will help us continue our growth trajectory, particularly with the help of visionary investors like Carina Namih, who supported our seed round and is now supporting us again at Plural.”