Lindus Health, an the anti-CRO running faster and more reliable clinical trials, announced it has raised $55 million in Series B funding. This funding round was led by new investor Balderton Capital, with support from Visionaries Club and existing investors Creandum, Firstminute, and Seedcamp.
The company is backed by a strategic advisory board, including Robert S. Langer, founder of Moderna and over 40 other biotechnology companies, and Tim Garnett, former CMO of Eli Lilly, amongst others.
As the only major provider offering fully integrated CRO services and in-house trial management technology, Lindus Health is uniquely positioned to leverage big data and AI. The $55 million in new funding will enable the company to further develop their AI technology and eClinical platform, Citrus, to optimize study design, automate central monitoring of study data, enable instant biostatistics, and more, as well as hiring in key areas including clinical operations and product development.
All new medical treatments must undergo rigorous testing through clinical trials run by contract research organizations (CROs) to demonstrate that they are safe and effective. CROs are notorious for running trials over time and budget: 85% of clinical trials are delayed – and the clinical research process has become exponentially slower and more expensive over the last two decades. And the CRO industry has remained stagnant, with minimal technology adoption or modern approaches to streamline clinical development. This hinders the pace at which treatments can reach patients and drives up research and healthcare costs. From 2021 to 2022 alone, the cost of developing a single drug was estimated to have increased by almost $300M. These costs are passed on to patients through higher drug prices and insurance premiums.
The company has leaned heavily into the power of AI and automation through its proprietary clinical trial software platform, Citrus. And it also built sophisticated methods for central patient recruitment and enabling new trial designs. This has resulted in massive efficiency gains, with clinical trials up to three times faster and producing demonstrably better quality trial data, ultimately setting the stage for more significant scientific innovation and lower healthcare costs.
Launched in 2021, Lindus Health has operated 42 end-to-end clinical trials, impacting a broad range of market segments, including psychiatry, diagnostics, and respiratory health. The company has enrolled over 36,000 patients in their trials across North America and Europe, including collaborations with Aktiia on a 7,500-patient device study and Pharmanovia on a Phase IV trial for insomnia.
Lindus Health’s use of machine learning (ML) to predict clinical trial outcomes from historical trial data and optimize study design has earned recognition in Nature. The company also facilitated foundational research into perceptions of clinical trial participation across various demographic groups, conducted alongside Oxford University, highlighting its commitment to turning patient insights into actionable steps that improve trial outcomes. Lindus has earned numerous accolades, such as inclusion in WIRED Startups 100, Sifted, and others that reflect Lindus’ growing influence on how clinical trials are executed and managed.
This latest funding marks a pivotal step in Lindus Health’s journey to create monumental change in how clinical research is conducted. By breaking free from outdated industry norms, the company is unlocking the potential for groundbreaking treatments to reach patients more efficiently, setting the stage for better healthcare for all.
KEY QUOTES:
“The antiquated CRO model is failing the industry and failing patients, with inefficiencies and misaligned incentives propelling costs and causing researchers to stumble before their breakthroughs can reach patients. Lindus breaks the cycle by completely reinventing the way clinical trials operate, allowing life science companies to iterate faster.”
- Meri Beckwith, co-founder of Lindus Health
“The last 20 years have seen huge breakthroughs in fundamental scientific research, but this isn’t impacting the general population because of the artificial bottleneck that clinical trials create. We’re fixing that with a new paradigm for running trials underpinned by technology. That doesn’t just lead to faster trials, it changes the way companies can think about drug development going from waterfall big bets to agile research.”
- Michael Young, co-founder of Lindus Health
“We’re thrilled to partner with Lindus Health in their mission to improve the clinical research ecosystem. In an industry marked by slow growth and fragmentation, their vision for how clinical trials should operate and unwavering commitment to help improve patient outcomes puts them on a completely different playing field than other companies in this space. With the last two decades of developments in the life sciences and artificial intelligence we are at the cusp of an exciting new wave of drug discovery, Lindus’ pioneering mission to build the anti-CRO will enable the translation of these discoveries into the therapeutics that will improve the health and lives of millions of people.”
- Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton
