Healx, an AI startup to research drugs to treat rare diseases | Festina Lente - Your leading source of AI news | Turtles AI

 Healx raises $47 million to advance drug discovery for rare diseases

Key points:
- Healx raises $47 million in Series C funding round led by Atomico and R42.
- The company uses artificial intelligence to find connections between existing drugs and rare diseases.
- Healx plans to begin phase 2 clinical trials for the drug HLX-1502 against neurofibromatosis type 1 by the end of 2024.
- Healx’s AI platform aims to reduce the time and cost of discovering new treatments.

UK startup Healx recently raised $47 million in a Series C funding round co-led by European venture capital firm Atomico and Silicon Valley-based R42. This injection of capital will be instrumental in accelerating Healx’s mission to discover new drugs for rare diseases through the advanced use of artificial intelligence.

 An innovative drug discovery platform

Founded in Cambridge in 2014, Healx stands out for its innovative approach to drug discovery. The platform uses AI to identify hidden connections between existing chemical compounds and rare diseases by leveraging a wide range of public and proprietary data, including biomedical literature, disease datasets, clinical trials, and patents. This "biomedical knowledge graph" makes it possible to accelerate the process of discovering and developing new treatments.

Tim Guilliams, co-founder and CEO of Healx, explained, "Our AI platform and expert teams enable us to identify and discover new disease biologies and match them to suitable small molecules." This methodology makes it possible to move beyond the traditional "one disease, one target, one drug" approach, which is often time-consuming and has high failure rates, instead offering faster and more efficient solutions.

 Clinical trials and new trials

With the funds raised, Healx is preparing to start phase 2 clinical trials for HLX-1502, a new treatment for neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a rare genetic disease that causes benign tumors to grow on nerves. The trial is scheduled to begin by the end of 2024 and will focus on young adults with inoperable plexiform neurofibroma. The HLX-1502 candidate is derived from an existing drug, originally developed for another condition, that had never been launched in the United States. Healx is reformulating it, leveraging existing safety data to minimize side effects.

 Future prospects and expansion

Despite the Series C funding round being $9 million less than the previous Series B round in 2019, Healx continues to make significant progress. The company recently reduced its staff by 45 percent to adapt to new market conditions, but maintained its focus on key therapeutic areas and improved operational efficiency through advances in generative AI.

Healx is also planning an expansion into the United States, where clinical trials are expected to begin by December. Preliminary results could be available by the first half of 2026, followed by possible further clinical trials and drug registrations depending on results and interactions with regulatory agencies.

The latest round of funding underscores investors’ confidence in Healx’s discovery model. With the goal of making available new treatments for rare diseases and improving patients’ quality of life, the company continues to push the boundaries of drug research through the innovative use of AI.