Lindus Health launches with $5m seed round to revolutionise health research 

• Lindus Health publicly launched today, announcing $5m in seed funding from leading technology and healthcare investors including Firstminute Capital, Presight Capital, Seedcamp, Hambro Perks and Amino Collective. 
• Lindus Health was founded in March 2021 by Michael Young and Meri Beckwith. Michael was previously a Special Adviser to the UK Prime Minister. Meri was a venture capitalist, investing in healthcare companies. 
• Michael and Meri both saw the huge problems healthcare companies had conducting clinical research, and trials with endemic delays and astronomical costs. 
• The industry hasn’t changed in 30 years, and the cost of bringing new medicines to market is skyrocketing as a result. This means patients are missing out on lifesaving new treatments. 
• Lindus Health is fixing this. Their mission is to accelerate research for the next generation of healthcare companies. They’re building the world’s first full stack clinical trial platform, to conduct faster, safer clinical trials, improving health outcomes for everyone. 

Commenting Meri Beckwith (co-founder) said: 

“Traditional clinical research companies are dinosaurs. Taking part in a COVID vaccine trial was like stepping into a time machine. This was one of the best funded trials in history but research was done on pen and paper and participants had to go into hospital at the height of the pandemic to fill out forms. We founded Lindus Health to make it easier for patients to participate in research, and accelerate the development of new treatments.” 

Commenting Michael Young (co-founder) said: 

“During my time in government I heard time and time again that the way clinical trials are conducted is broken. This means that patients are missing out on lifesaving treatments. To fix this requires a totally new business model for clinical trials. So we founded Lindus Health to do just that and to enable the next generation of healthcare companies.” 

Commenting Lina Wenner (Firstminute Capital) said: 

“There has rightfully been a huge amount of investment and excitement around drug discovery and new treatment modalities like CRISPR and mRNA vaccines. But all of these promising treatments need to go through clinical trials before patients can benefit, and this remains a huge bottleneck. Most startups tackling this problem have focused on point solutions, but Lindus Health are building a full stack solution for healthcare startups, which is absolutely the right approach. The founders Meri and Michael are incredibly

ambitious — a trait which we think is essential for innovating in an industry, which is still dominated by large incumbents with deeply established networks.” 

The problem 

Over the last 30 years life expectancy in developed countries has stagnated. There have been few, if any, advances in frontline treatments for the majority of common chronic conditions. Today, the average cost to bring a new drug to market is over $1 billion (source) and Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly focusing on niche markets. The fundamental cause of all of this is clinical trials. 

Clinical trials are the core of healthcare research. They’re needed to assess the safety and efficacy of new treatments. They’re also getting increasingly expensive over time, making new medicines cost exponentially more and limiting the number of new treatments available. 

There are two main drivers of this: incumbent organisations, and antiquated technology. The incumbents are old-fashioned service organisations that operate on a cost-plus business model, outsourcing almost all aspects of trial delivery. This means they have neither the incentive nor the levers to make clinical trials more efficient. In tandem, most trials are labour-intensive and still delivered on pen and paper or use a mess of different technology systems, meaning that costs are high and data quality is poor. 

About Lindus Health 

Lindus Health’s mission is to fix this problem, to enable the next generation of healthcare. Lindus Health is focused on working with start-ups and growth companies to deliver trials better, faster, and cheaper. They do this using an innovative business model, centralising 

delivery to allow efficiency gains, while leveraging technology to bring research into the 21st century. 

Seed round fundraising 

Lindus Health is announcing a $5m seed round. Investors include leading European and US investors, Firstminute Capital, Presight Capital, Seedcamp, Hambro Perks, Amino Collective, Calm/Storm Ventures. Angel investors include Mehdi Ghissassi (Deepmind), Alex Zhavoronkov (Insilico Medicine), Marc Warner (Faculty AI), James Dacombe (CoMind), Henry de Zoete (Look After My Bills), and Vishal Gulati (healthtech.vc). 

The seed funding will be used to scale the Lindus Health team. With a team combining deep industry expertise and cutting-edge technology Lindus Health is poised to disrupt Life Sciences. Lindus Health’s advisors include Tamsin Berry (Biotech investor and previously Head of UK Government Life Sciences), and Shaun Treweek (editor of the Trials journal). Early employees include Nik Haldimann (co-founder and CTO), Luke Twelves (primary care lead), and Rebecca de Rome (operations and growth lead).