Solvemed raises £3.2m for Eye Identification of Neurological Diseases
Summary
In the US alone, neurodegenerative diseases cost more than $655 billion annually in medical costs and economic losses.At the age of 17, co-founder Hugo Chrost began working on what would become Solvemeds own technology thanks in part to a family history of neurological disease. He was subsequently joined by Dr. Michal Wlodarski, who brought to Solvemed diverse academic and industrial experience in the field of innovative HealthTech technologies.As a teenager, I saw the impact of neurological disease on my family, said CEO Hrost. As a technology entrepreneur, I knew I wanted to find a better way to help doctors clinically assess such diseases earlier and get better information for treatment before its too late.This is the start of our work at Solvemed to develop a new way of analyzing a patients brain that minimizes costs for healthcare professionals and avoids invasive procedures for patients.Dr. Together, they saw the possibility of using the patients eyes as a source of clinically valuable information about the brain.Investors include a number of European and American venture capital firms, including Atmos Ventures, APEX Ventures, Tensor Ventures, Preface Ventures, Techni Ventures, as well as Sunfish Partners, which invested in the company at a pre-seed stage in December 2020.The latest round of investment was also backed by a number of leading angel investors, including Cambridge and Atomico Angels, as well as a co-founder of Snowflake, the worlds largest data storage company.Solvemed works with leading healthcare providers and clinical researchers, including Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust, Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Barts Health NHS Trust and UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.The startup intends to complete its initial regulatory filings in the US and EU to then scale the introduction of its product to medical centers across Europe, the UK and the US, and will seek pilot studies and joint product development with neuroscience-focused pharmaceuticals and BioTech. companies.Dominik Andrzejczuk, MD, Atmos Ventures, added: The eye is a unique window into the brain that can be easily assessed using non-invasive eye imaging.The use of ocular biomarkers as a potential tool for the early diagnosis of certain types of neurodegenerative diseases has shown great promise over the past few years.Solvemeds technology enables these biomarkers to be captured inexpensively and at scale, giving the company a competitive edge in both technology and data collection.