- Funding will fuel TrialReach's clinical trial platform
growth and expansion into the U.S.
LONDON, Feb. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- TrialReach, the
world's largest provider of clinical trial information, today
announced it has raised a $13.5M
Series B financing round led by Smedvig Capital with participation
from existing investors Amadeus Capital Partners and Octopus
Investments. With one of the biggest digital health rounds ever
raised in the United Kingdom,
TrialReach plans to use the funds to support the growth of its
clinical trial platform and expansion into the U.S..
Founded in 2010, TrialReach is helping to solve one of the
biggest challenges in medical research: connecting patients with
clinical trials. One in five cancer trials in the U.S. fails to
find a single participant, and only three percent of adult patients
participate in cancer research, simply because most patients don't
know that clinical trials are an option for them. For
pharmaceutical companies, trial delays can equate to over
$8M of lost daily revenue per drug,
while for patients, delays reduce the number of potentially
life-saving drugs that are available to them.
"We have had significant success in the U.S. market to date, and
we are confident that now it's the right time to scale up our team
and operations domestically, in order to solidify our leadership
position," said Pablo Graiver, CEO,
TrialReach. "Smedvig has significant experience working with early
stage tech-enabled businesses. Their hands-on support will
accelerate our plans to become the industry standard for
pharmaceutical companies seeking patients for clinical trials. We
eagerly anticipate the opening of our New
York office to jumpstart our business and sales efforts
across the U.S."
Unlike other clinical search sites, the TrialReach platform is
designed to aggregate and structure all clinical trial listings
worldwide, so that patients can be smart matched with the specific
trials for which they may be eligible. In addition, the platform
gives trial sponsors the opportunity to describe trials and patient
criteria in a non-clinical manner that's much easier for patients
to understand.
"TrialReach's bold online marketplace approach offers a solution
to one of the biggest problems in the pharmaceutical industry –
matching patients with clinical trials," said Jordan Mayo, a Managing Director at Smedvig
Capital. "TrialReach's platform can reach and help millions of
patients with chronic and life-threatening diseases, and address a
huge and underserved market opportunity. We believe they are well
placed to expand rapidly to the significant benefit of
pharmaceutical companies, clinical trial practitioners and
patients."
TrialReach is already working with many of the world's leading
health organizations, including the WHO, and more than half of the
top 25 pharmaceutical companies are using TrialReach's platform to
support their clinical trial efforts. In addition, TrialReach
reaches millions of patients online through partnerships with major
health portals including Healthline, Everyday Health and
CenterWatch as well as some patient networks such as WEGO Health
and CureClick.
About TrialReach
The TrialReach platform is helping to solve one of the biggest
challenges in medical research: connecting patients with clinical
trials. Our mission is to empower millions of people to participate
in clinical trials across the world to develop new medical
treatments and find cures faster. TrialReach was launched in 2010
and is based in the U.S. and London,
U.K. For more information, visit
http://www.trialreach.com.
About Smedvig Capital
Smedvig Capital was founded in 1996 and has invested over £600m
of internal capital. They invest £2-15m in fast-growing innovative
businesses, backing ambitious teams with the potential to become
market leaders.
Smedvig Capital's model is to invest in a small number of
businesses each year, and then commit time to working closely with
management, providing advice and hands-on support.
Smedvig invests across a range of sectors; previous and current
investments include a number of tech-enabled businesses such as
Zipcar/Streetcar, myhomemove, Quill Content and Tusker. For more
information, visit http://www.smedvigcapital.com.
About Amadeus Capital Partners
Amadeus has an 18 year history of successful technology
investing. Since its inception, the firm has backed over 90
companies from 10 funds totalling over $1bn in cumulative commitments. Amadeus has a
presence in the UK, Sweden, US,
India and South Africa and the team has deep experience
of technology. Major businesses built by Amadeus include Optos
(LSE:OPTS), Solexa, acquired by Illumina Inc. (ILMN), and CSR
(LSE:CSR).
About Octopus Investments
Octopus is a venture capital investor who backs talented people
with the potential to build big businesses. Our focus is on
identifying entrepreneurs and fast growth companies that can scale
explosively to create, transform or dominate an industry. The
Ventures team has a proven track record of helping build
exceptional global businesses, including Zoopla Property Group,
Secret Escapes, SwiftKey, graze.com and YPlan. The Ventures team is
part of Octopus Investments, one of the UK's leading investment
management companies specialising in smaller company investing,
with more than £4.7 billion of assets under management.
http://www.octopusinvestments.com/