Raremark Secures £3M Funding to Advance Precision Medicine for Rare Diseases and Files Prospectus

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that on October 22, 2018, local time, London’s leading data platform for patients with rare diseasesRaremarkAnnounced £3 million in funding, with this round co-led by AlbionVC and Ananda Ventures, and participated in by Oltre Venture and existing investor Cass Entrepreneurship.

Previously, Raremark had completed two rounds of seed funding, totaling approximately £1.2 million.

It is reported that this round of funding will be used to develop patient engagement and data analytics technologies for the Raremark platform, helping biopharmaceutical companies identify, attract, and understand patients, thereby improving the quality of existing therapies and discovering new ones.

Raremark is a data analytics platform built on a research network of patients with rare diseases and their families. The platform leverages machine learning technologies to engage and retain patients in novel ways, helping them improve health literacy and participate informedly in medical research. Meanwhile, Raremark also provides biopharmaceutical companies with anonymized and aggregated patient data to help reduce the time and cost of clinical development.

“Raremark has built a technology platform powered by content algorithms to facilitate patient engagement and advanced data analysis, thereby enhancing understanding of the mechanisms, symptoms, and heterogeneity of rare diseases,” said Lennart Hergel, Partner at Ananda Ventures, in a statement. “The resulting high-quality insights will enable the company to develop more effective treatments that meet patients’ needs.”

In Europe, rare diseases are defined as conditions with a prevalence of fewer than 5 in 10,000 individuals. These diseases are often difficult for physicians to detect. The average diagnostic delay for rare diseases is seven years. Currently, more than 7,000 rare diseases have been identified, affecting approximately 350 million patients worldwide. Due to limited sample sizes, life sciences companies face significant challenges in conducting extensive research and analysis on these conditions.

Julie Walters, CEO and Founder of Raremark, stated: “Healthcare is becoming increasingly personalized, with precision medicine delivering the right treatments to the right patients. However, accessing reliable and structured real-world patient data remains one of the most formidable challenges in drug development for rare diseases.”

However, Raremark is not the only digital tool focused on rare diseases. This August, the startup RDMD raised $3 million in seed funding for its platform, which aims to accelerate clinical research on rare diseases by leveraging personal health records. Unlike Raremark, RDMD extracts and analyzes data from electronic health records (EHRs) to conduct rapid retrospective studies and generate new real-world evidence.

Raremark is a data analytics platform built on a research network of patients with rare diseases and their families. Founded in 2015, the company is headquartered in London, UK, with an office in Boston, US. Raremark provides biopharmaceutical companies with anonymized and aggregated patient data to help reduce the time and cost of clinical development.

AlbionVC is the technology investment arm of Albion Capital Group LLP. Its primary investment scope ranges from seed-stage investments in startups to Series B investments in high-growth companies, predominantly in the UK, with a focus on B2B software and technology-enabled services. With over two decades of experience in technology investing, Albion manages £450 million in assets under management (AUM) in technology companies and holds more than 40 technology investments in its portfolio.

Ananda Ventures is one of the most influential venture capital firms in Europe. It aims to promote enterprises to address social challenges such as education, sustainable consumption, population aging, and health in a sustainable, market-oriented manner.