Savana gets $25 million booster to make clinical research more powerful with big data

Real World Data, or the routinely stored data in hospitals, has become extremely valuable to improve clinical trials. AI and big data algorithms are increasingly being used to infer knowledge, or Real World Evidence, from this wealth of largely unstructured and siloed information previously not accessible.

By leveraging this data, experts can increase the efficiency of drugs by better targeting patients, finding biomarkers, accelerating the delivery of molecules to the market, testing their hypotheses, and repurposing molecules.

Bullish on the segment, Madrid-based medical company developing innovative AI technologies to unlock the clinical value in this data, Savana has raised a $25 million funding round. The funding was led by Conexo Ventures and saw the participation of Knuru Capital, Aldea Ventures and existing investors Seaya Ventures and Cathay Innovation.

With the newly infused capital, the platform will increase its data analysis capabilities, to include new data layers (genomics, biomolecular data or images), and tackle new sources of information (such as those generated during clinical trials). The company accelerating health science with big data had earlier raised $15 million in Series B funding to expand into America.

Launched in 2014, the Spanish health tech startup is using AI to provide medical knowledge based on ‘Real World Evidence’ to enhance research and build predictive models to enhance patients’ lives. The company provides doctors with life-saving insights by unlocking the critical information buried within the free text of clinical notes, which can then be analysed jointly with systems biology information, allowing hospitals to optimize the research and development of new drugs.

According to the company, its technology has enabled more than 200 hospitals to extract insights from over 2 billion medical records in 16 countries across Western Europe and the Americas. 

Jorge Tello, CEO and co-founder, Savana said: “We want to reinvent the way clinical research is done. We have created the concept and processes to generate evidence through AI applied to medical records. Now it's time to bring our capabilities into the R&D space while expanding our services across the geographies in which we operate.”

Joaquím Hierro Lopes, managing partner, Conexo Ventures, added: “With this new investment at the intersection of AI and clinical research evidence, GED doubles down its commitment to the healthcare sector through its VC fund Conexo Ventures, to support Savana in its ambitious growth and international expansion plan.”