Tech-enabled clinical trial platform Paradigm announced its launch alongside a $203 million Series A funding round co-led by ARCH Venture Partners and General Catalyst.

F-Prime Capital, LUX Capital, GV, Magnetic Ventures and Mubadala Capital also participated in the round. American Cancer Society's BrightEdge fund was a strategic investor.  

The company also announced its acquisition of Deep Lens, a patient recruitment platform for oncology-focused clinical trials. 

Paradigm, conceived by ARCH Venture Partners and co-incubated by ARCH and General Catalyst, said it is building a platform that aims to streamline the clinical trial process for patients and connect biopharmaceutical trial sponsors and healthcare providers.

Paradigm's leadership includes numerous individuals with experience in the life science space, including CEO Kent Thoelke, who was the former chief innovation officer at clinical research organization ICON and chief science officer at PRA Health, a contract research organization acquired by ICON. 

Other members of the team include Milind Kamkolkar as COO (former chief data officer at French pharma company Sanofi and global head of data science and AI at Novartis) and Dr. Kathryn Lang as senior vice president of clinical and medical solutions (former global head of oncology real-world evidence at Pfizer), among others. 

The funds will be used to grow its platform and its partnerships with life sciences companies and healthcare systems. 

"Clinical research is ready for a reboot," Robert Nelson, Paradigm board cochair and cofounder and managing director of ARCH Venture Partners, said in a statement. "Today, the system is broken in almost every respect - patient access is too narrow, incentives are misaligned, and poor trial design slows development. We saw an opportunity to fundamentally rebuild the system and fix the business model. The Paradigm team has the right experience to overhaul clinical research, and we're committed to supporting their execution of our shared vision."

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Other companies in the tech-enabled clinical trial space include British digital health tech company Huma, which announced its acquisition of clinical trial data specialist Alcedis earlier this month. 

The UK-based company said it would create an advanced clinical trials division utilizing German-based Alcedis' platform that will offer digital health solutions spanning various stages of the development process, from early-stage development to phase 4 decentralized clinical trials. 

Another platform in the space is Lokavant, which provides a centralized data repository for managing clinical trials. The company raised $21 million in a funding round in December. 

Other companies include patient data capture and clinical trial tech company uMotif, and ASX-listed health tech firm CardieX, which partnered with AI-enabled health tech company Invaryant to conduct joint clinical research on maternal health and cardiovascular disease.