Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (GHI), a subsidiary of US-based pharmaceutical firm Merck & Co, agreed on Friday to lead an $11m funding round for UK-based clinical testing access developer Antidote Technologies.
Venture capital firm Smedvig Capital and Octopus Ventures, which forms part of fund manager Octopus Group, are also participating in the round, which will increase Antidote’s total funding to $26m once regulatory clearance has been secured.
Antidote has created a clinical trial matching platform called Antidote Match that seeks to reduce the number of trials that are closed or suspended because of a lack of suitable patients. It has so far served 14,000 clinical trials and is expected to reach full coverage of US trials by next year.
The funding will go toward developing new features such as precision medicine and electronic health record matching, while also furthering Antidote’s international expansion plans.
Octopus first participated in Antidote’s £2m ($3.1m) series A round in 2013 before contributing to a $13.5m series B in 2015 that was led by Smedvig and backed by Amadeus Capital Partners.
Francesca Wuttke, managing director at Merck GHI, said: “We are excited to back Antidote given the company’s focus on solving the critical issue of matching patients with the right clinical trials.”