Biofourmis raises $35m to develop smarter treatments for chronic diseases

Biofourmis raises $35m to develop smarter treatments for chronic diseases (TechCrunch)

• Singapore-based start-up Biofourmis has raised USd35m in a heavily oversubscribed Series B funding round led by Sequoia India and MassMutual Ventures, the VC fund from Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.
• The company is pioneering a distinctly tech-based approach to treating chronic conditions and is planning to use the proceeds to move its headquarters to the US to be closer to its customers.
• Biofurmis is currently awaiting FDA approval to commercialise its service, which involves an AI platform that collects telemetric data from medical sensors and disseminates it through mobile apps to patients and caregivers for monitoring and pre-emptive care.
• The company focuses on a range of post-discharge therapeutics, with cardiac being its most advanced segment.

Analysis & Comments

• This is an interesting story for a number of reasons. Most people know by now that rapidly aging populations are putting an additional strain on global healthcare systems due to the link between chronic diseases and age.
• Biofourmis’ technology taps into two trends; 1) the shift from hospital to home care through remote patient monitoring (something that could eventually be scaled well beyond post-discharge patients to people suffering from chronic diseases) and 2) the increasing demand for personalised treatments.
• Furthermore, there is emerging clinical evidence that drug-software combinations can enhance clinical effectiveness, making them a powerful tool in an environment that is gradually seeing healthcare systems shift away from volume-based care to reimbursement linked to outcomes. The UK and the Nordic countries are likely to lead this shift to value-based care in Europe, in our view, and while the shift in the US has decelerated under Trump, we continue to expect that 80% of reimbursements will be linked to outcomes over the next 10 years.
• Biofourmis’ co-founder and CEO said the company is eying a future IPO sometime around 2023, provided the company has at least two products in the market by then.