Healthtech
Virtual clinical trials continue to attract investor interest
October 7, 2021
Technologies that help facilitate remote clinical trials were a necessity during the pandemic-related shutdowns.
But investor interest in these solutions does not appear to be waning now that researchers can see patients in person.
Two companies in this field that just raised funding are San Francisco-headquartered Slope, attracting a $20 million Series A funding round led by NEA, and El Segundo, Calif.-based Lightship, which nabbed $40 million led by Define Ventures and Brook Byers, a founding member of Kleiner Perkins.
These rounds follow Reify Health's $220 million Series C, announced in August. The deal, which was led by Coatue, valued the Boston-based decentralized clinical trial company at $2.2 billion, a more than a 12x step up from the startups' Series B valuation announced in August of 2020, according to PitchBook data.
While decentralized clinical trials are becoming more popular, Kaia Colban, PitchBook's healthcare analyst, does not believe it is plausible for most drug studies to move to a fully remote format. But she anticipates that many trials will use some elements of these technologies, such as remote patient monitoring.
The biggest value of decentralized models is that they can attract patients from diverse demographics and geographies, Colban says.
Featured image by someone25/Getty Images
But investor interest in these solutions does not appear to be waning now that researchers can see patients in person.
Two companies in this field that just raised funding are San Francisco-headquartered Slope, attracting a $20 million Series A funding round led by NEA, and El Segundo, Calif.-based Lightship, which nabbed $40 million led by Define Ventures and Brook Byers, a founding member of Kleiner Perkins.
These rounds follow Reify Health's $220 million Series C, announced in August. The deal, which was led by Coatue, valued the Boston-based decentralized clinical trial company at $2.2 billion, a more than a 12x step up from the startups' Series B valuation announced in August of 2020, according to PitchBook data.
While decentralized clinical trials are becoming more popular, Kaia Colban, PitchBook's healthcare analyst, does not believe it is plausible for most drug studies to move to a fully remote format. But she anticipates that many trials will use some elements of these technologies, such as remote patient monitoring.
The biggest value of decentralized models is that they can attract patients from diverse demographics and geographies, Colban says.
Featured image by someone25/Getty Images
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