Science 37 Secures $31M Series B Funding to Expand Clinical Trial Access to Anyone, Anywhere, Anytime
New investment will enable Science 37 to scale business operations and enhance technology platform
Science 37, a technology-enabled clinical research company, announced that it has completed a $31 million Series B financing. Science 37 is reimagining clinical research by bringing clinical trials to people’s homes, which unlocks access to those beyond a geographical barrier. The investment will help the company grow operations, further develop its novel technology platform and continue to expand into new therapeutic areas.
The Series B financing was led by Redmile Group, with further funding from Series A lead investors Lux Capital and dRx Capital, as well as a strategic investment from Sanofi Genzyme BioVentures. In addition to financial backing, Sanofi will provide Science 37 with world class technical and strategic guidance through interactions with their international development teams and their affiliates working in the clinical trial ecosystem. As part of the financing, Rob Faulkner, Managing Director at Redmile Group, will join the Science 37 Board of Directors.
Science 37 offers end-to-end decentralized clinical trial services, allowing sponsors and researchers to streamline trial setup, increase the speed of recruitment, improve patient retention and offer exceptional data quality. Science 37 aims to reduce the time and cost of running clinical trials by using technology to improve the patient experience and simplify patient recruitment and retention. Today, the pharmaceutical and medical device industries spend approximately $50 billion annually on clinical trials. Up to 90 percent of these trials face cost overruns and delays. On average, clinical trials can take 6-9 years to complete and represent as much as 40 percent of total therapy development costs. Bottlenecks include identification of investigation sites, trial site start-up and patient recruitment. Nearly 50 percent of research sites underperform on patient enrollment targets, causing trial delays or even failure.
“The clinical trial process represents significant cost and risk in the development cycle for new therapeutics and medical devices,” said incoming director, Rob Faulkner at Redmile Group. “Science 37 brings a revolutionary approach to the clinical trial process and our investment underscores our confidence in the company’s ability to deliver faster and less expensive clinical trials.”
Introducing a new model to streamline clinical trials
Today’s clinical trial model is built around trial sites, each of which draws from a local geographic area. Up to 70 percent of potential patients live outside of these local areas.
Science 37 replaces physical sites with a single “metasite™” and brings the clinical trial directly to the patient’s home. This means that the patient is allowed to retain their existing doctor while benefiting from reduced travel time and access to quality healthcare via telemedicine or doctor home visits when appropriate. Patients with rare diseases or those eligible for precision medicine can gain access to the same trials as those close to traditional sites. This accelerates biomedical discovery and reduces clinical trial costs. The metasite™ is powered by a cloud-based mobile research platform called Network Oriented Research Assistant, (NORA™), that connects investigators and patients, safely and securely.
“Our first investment in Science 37 proved it possible to transform clinical trials and partner with top pharma, biotech and med device companies,” said Adam Goulburn, Ph.D., partner at Lux Capital. “Now we’re thrilled to deepen our commitment, putting patients first and using technology to speed life-saving discoveries and cut wasteful costs out of what is today an unquestioned, archaic process.”
“Science 37 has demonstrated that its new approach to clinical trial management can drive dramatic improvements for the biomedical industry,” said Lucian Iancovici, M.D., partner at dRx Capital. “With our continued investment, Science 37 will have greater capacity to pursue new partnerships and help organizations increase the likelihood of successful clinical trials to find new cures faster.”
“We are excited to expand our investment mandate in the digital health space and to start this new initiative with Science 37, a leading company applying transformative digital techniques to clinical trial design and enrollment,” said Bernard Davitian, Managing Director at SGBV. “This investment is fully aligned with Sanofi’s digital strategy and provides an opportunity for us to play an active role in this area of the digital revolution.”
The availability of technology is empowering patients with more information, increasing their role in decision making and reshaping their expectations from healthcare companies.
“We started with the simple question, ‘What is best for patients?’ and built our technology and new clinical trial operating model around the answers. With this latest Series B funding, we will be able to create an even greater impact and achieve our mission of unlocking patient access to clinical trials. Our investors understand how we fit into the larger digital revolution that is forcing healthcare companies to think big, learn fast, adapt successfully, and enable patients to take a more proactive role in their own health,” said Noah Craft, M.D., Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Science 37. “Our early successes last year demonstrated an exponential acceleration of trial speed that has led to incredible demand from biotech and pharmaceutical sponsors. We all share the common goal of bringing new cures to patients faster and this investment will allow us to scale to meet the needs of our clients, while expanding into new therapeutic areas.”