Precision medicine company GNS Healthcare has raised an additional $6 million in equity from Amgen Ventures, with participation from existing investor Alexandria Real Estate Equities. The funds will be used to further develop the company's REFS causal machine learning and simulation platform -- as well as solutions across drug discovery and development, value-based drug solutions, and care management.
With the investment, Amgen Ventures joins other biopharma companies Celgene and Zambon Pharmaceuticals, health plans Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield (Cambia Health Solutions), and Horizon Blue Cross of New Jersey and provider Heritage Provider Network; that’s all in addition to Mitsui, GHO Capital, and Fort Rock Capital as shareholders of GNS.
REFS stands for Reverse Engineering and Forward Simulation, and the machine learning and simulation platform collects patient data, including information from electronic medical records, connected health devices, medical and pharmacy claims, genomics, and consumer behavior.
The company uses this data to identify what health interventions and drugs would be best suited for individual patients. This would in turn help healthcare organizations improve outcomes and lower costs related to preterm birth, medication adherence, metabolic syndrome, comparative effectiveness in diabetes, specialty care, oncology and more.
In December, GNS Healthcare raised $10 million from Celgene Corporation, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, and Gi Global Health Fund. The company’s total funding is now in the vicinity of $39 million.
Also last year, GNS announced preliminary results from a partnership with the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation to find treatments for multiple myeloma.The companies used GNS' REFS offering on a dataset that included clinical and genomic data for nearly 800 patients that was collected over eight years.
"We are excited to have Amgen Ventures join in our efforts to transform medicine and healthcare through data and artificial intelligence," said Colin Hill, chairman, CEO and co-founder of GNS Healthcare, in a statement. "We are witnessing an acceleration in the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning across all industries with GNS leading the way in the life sciences and healthcare industries with data from tens of millions of lives being processed by our platforms. This is the path to better matching drugs and other health interventions to individual patients to improve health outcomes, slow disease progression, and lower the total cost of care."
