NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – NuMedii announced today that it has raised $3.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Claremont Creek Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from Life Science Angels and others.
NuMedii said that it will use the funding to further develop its proprietary technology and prepare its first three internal drug development programs for clinical testing.
The company also expanded its board of directors to include three new members: Ted Driscoll, who leads Claremont Creek Ventures' digital healthcare team and who will serve as the board's chairman; Brad Webb, a venture partner from Claremont Creek Ventures; and Samuel Saks, a board-certified oncologist and founder of Jazz Pharmaceuticals.
NuMedii also said that it has hired Craig Webb to serve as its chief scientific officer. Webb joins the company after spending 13 years with the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Van Andel Research Institute, where he developed an integrated program in translational medicine. Specifically, he worked on identifying optimal therapies for cancer patients and new uses for existing drugs.
Founded in 2008, NuMedii uses proprietary informatic infrastructure developed at Stanford University to analyze disease, pharmacological, and clinical data to discover drug-disease connections and biomarkers that predict drug efficacy. The company seeks partnerships with pharmaceutical companies to develop and commercialize therapeutic candidates.
"NuMedii's drug development approach is extremely capital efficient and is designed to be much more successful in bringing new therapeutics to patients," the company's founder and CEO, Gini Deshpande, said in a statement. "We are excited to have the backing of investors and advisors who have a track record of successfully establishing life science companies and who support our long-term vision for our company."