Greek startup Intelligencia has received €10.2 million ($12M) of Series A funding in a round led by European health tech investor MTIP. 

Previous seed-round investors, the Greek Big Pi Ventures and Synetro Group, also participated and were joined by global professional services firm ZS. 

Intelligencia will also partner with ZS, which will use its platform to help accelerate its ability to research disease and pipeline products for clients.

WHAT IT DOES

Intelligencia’s mission is to bring innovative therapies to patients faster and with reduced risk by offering drug development companies machine learning predictions about the trials they conduct and aid their critical decision-making process.

The platform’s proprietary algorithms assess more than 1.5B data points across clinical trial design, clinical outcomes, drug biology, funding, regulatory pathways, patients, and medical publications to offer accurate predictions and analysis.

WHAT IT’S FOR

Intelligencia will use the funds for product development and the expansion of its customer facing teams. The startup is also aiming to develop new partnerships with clients and partners to incorporate more data in its algorithms. 

THE LARGER CONTEXT 

Earlier this year, French AI startup Iktos and drug discovery firm Facio Therapies announced they are collaborating to design treatment for the skeletal muscle wasting condition facioscapulohumeral dystrophy (FSHD). Under the agreement, Iktos will apply its de novo ligand and structure-based generative modelling AI technologies in one of Facio’s drug discovery programmes.

Meanwhile Israeli startup CytoReason recently announced a collaboration with Swiss multinational, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, to establish new treatments for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The partnership is pairing Ferring’s medical expertise with CytoReason’s AI platform to build cell-centred disease models.

ON THE RECORD 

Vangelis Vergetis, Intelligencia cofounder, said: “We already work with several biopharmaceutical companies as they assess the risk of clinical development and aim to increase the productivity of their R&D efforts, including by accessing external innovation. This round will primarily go towards building our customer-facing teams in the US and Europe, as well as continuing to invest in our data and AI capabilities.”

Dimitrios Skaltsas, Intelligencia cofounder, added: “Intelligencia has been pioneering the application of data science solutions towards assessing and mitigating risks in drug development. This is solidly founded on expertly curated data and proprietary ontologies that have enabled us to generate one of the world's richest knowledge graphs in our space. We are now truly excited to be partnering with ZS.”

Judith Kulich, ZS principal, said: “This strategic partnership provides extensive benefits to our clients and partners. Through a robust understanding of the drivers behind clinical and regulatory success, as well as predictive modelling of molecules and programs most likely to be successful, we will guide our clients to invest in those areas most likely to realise value for patients and bring about tangible impact. Ultimately, this will reduce risk in drug development and improve the productivity of research and development.”