A Latvian start-up, recognised in the 2020 EIT Health Headstart accelerator programme announces the completion of a $1.2 million late seed financing on its way to advancing the digitalisation of biomedical research through its digital tools. Longenesis aims to promote patients’ involvement and confidence in research organisations and study sponsors, as well as allowing clinical sites and patient advocacy organisations to disclose their patients and data to adhere them to biomedical research.

The Riga-based medical technology start-up has had quite a year: in 2020 Longenesis got to the semi-finals of the EIT Health Headstart programme and won €40 000 EUR, and 12 months later the company announces that is has raised $1.2M in seed funding.

“These success stories provide crucial feedback regarding EIT Health’s accelerator programmes which – among others – offer support to start-ups with skills development and contacts so that they can go on to attract further financial support from private investors. By mentoring and providing networking opportunities we also help them bring their solutions to market. I am proud that the Headstart programme might have contributed to the success of Longenesis” – said Inês Matias, Business Creation Manager of EIT Health InnoStars. “The Latvian company showed us during last year’s accelerator programme that it responded to current healthcare challenges: their solution supported COVID-19 research with a technological toolkit that offered the ability to safely showcase patient data to clinical investigators and researchers without releasing personal information” – remembered Matias.

Longenesis, co-founded by Insilico Medicine and other top-tier biotech players, is a medical technology start-up company that provides a technological bridge between healthcare institutions and the Biotech industry. It aims to unlock the potential of biomedical data and accelerate the novel drug and treatment discovery.

Medical data are sensitive and private, which presents challenges for researchers that need vast and precise datasets through their work. By bringing digitisation and consent-enabled disclosure of biological assets, as well as emphasizing patient-centricity, Longenesis could eventually contribute to lowering costs for recruitment and speeding up biomedical research.

The funds – the overall $1.2 million was backed by a group of business angels led by Rustam Gilfanov and was also joined by Ilya Suharenko, a private investor and one of the Managing Partners of LongeVC – will allow Longenesis to expand in its key markets and scale the deployment of its three core products: Longenesis Curator, Longenesis Engage, Longenesis Themis.

Curator enables research institutions, such as hospitals or biobanks, to publish anonymised patient records and gain requests for co-operation from interested third parties. Engage simplifies the process of onboarding new patients and enables the management of patient contact information for follow-up inquiries and consent during their participation in research. Themis is a consent management solution for people enrolled in biomedical research and clinical trials that is accessible with the help of an API.