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KNOWN MEDICINE RAISES $7.2 MILLION SEED ROUND TO ADVANCE DATA FIRST APPROACH TO ORGANOID TECHNOLOGY
Known Medicine today announced the closure of its seed round of funding in the amount of $7.2 million led by Caffeinated Capital, with participation from Khosla Ventures, Cota Capital, Kickstart, Forward VC, OATV, Y Combinator and noted angel investors Chris Gibson, CEO & Co-Founder at Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Nish Bhat, previously Co-Founder at Color Genomics, and others. This funding will enable Known Medicine to rapidly grow its proprietary 3D cell culture data set for deployment in partnership with biopharmaceutical companies and in the clinical diagnostics space.
Known Medicine’s Oncology Diagnostics Inference Network (ODINTM) Platform uses proprietary organoid models called M3DUSATM Models and a bespoke image analysis pipeline - IRISTM Analysis to predict how well a patient’s tumor will respond to a specific treatment method before it is prescribed.
The M3DUSATM Model is a 3D organoid model developed and optimized to faithfully recreate the tumor microenvironment. The model is formulated using automation-friendly hydrogel components and includes cancer, stromal and immune cells. Known Medicine uses machine learning and high-content images of these organoids to better understand which cells are responding to treatments and why.
“Oncologists and patients, particularly late-stage cancer patients, need every tool we can give them to make the best treatment decisions,” said Andrea Mazzocchi, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Known Medicine. “Our ODIN platform is designed to provide rapid, actionable data to assist in that difficult process.” Katie-Rose Skelly, co-founder and CTO, added, “Our core technology and data first approach will provide critical technical, biological and clinical insights to drug developers and prescribers across the continuum from bench to bedside.”
“A projected 1.9 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and current clinical diagnostics based on genetic testing will help less than 10% of patients find the most effective treatment for their cancer,” said Varun Gupta, partner at Caffeinated Capital. “Known Medicine is transforming the way oncologists match patients to the right treatments by rapidly and accurately finding the best treatment for specific tumors. In less than a year, the company has already begun to demonstrate the efficacy and scalability of their technology platform for both clinical and biopharmaceutical use cases.”
Known Medicine’s platform leverages state-of-the-art image analysis in combination with high dimensional -omics level datasets to identify the best patients for existing drugs and the best potential new drug candidates.
