Ada’s Investment in MultiOmic

MultiOmic Health– why Ada Ventures invested in this healthcare start-up

Our latest investment comes under our healthcare theme: MultiOmic uses AI to find solutions for Metabolic Syndrome (MetSyn), a medical condition that contributes to around 42% of global deaths a year.

The MultiOmic team has a wealth of experience in biopharma, healthcare, and data research in addition to an innovative, ambitious, and feasible approach to a massive and growing healthcare issue.

We’ve invested in the £5 million (US$6.2 million) seed funding round alongside lead investors Hoxton Ventures with participation from MMC Ventures, Verve Ventures, Selvedge Venture, Fifty Years and others.

Why we invested in MultiOmic

MetSyn is a medical condition that causes cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and many other medical conditions, including high-blood pressure and obesity.

The scale of the market is unmatched; MetSyn affects one in three adults globally (and half of adults over 60 years old). There may be 131 approved drugs for MetSyn but while these can delay disease progression, they do not treat the underlying causes. Mostly ‘trial and error’ prescriptions, they are not guaranteed to cure the condition. For example, 44% of anti-cholesterol patients on statins will nevertheless still experience cardiac events within seven years. Not to mention that many of the serious health consequences of MetSyn such as kidney, liver, nerve damage remain without treatment. The healthcare costs of this alone (and not accounting lost productivity) are $1.9 trillion a year.

There is a lot of R&D in this area; in the last ten years there have been over 2000 clinical trials for MetSyn related conditions (cardiovascular, endocrine, metabolics) but only 7.8% of these resulted in new medicines due to poor patient selection and data analysis.

MultiOmic aims to build the first MetSyn-optimised AI-enabled Drug Discovery (AIDD) platform.

So, what does MultiOmic do?

MultiOmic plans to secure as much patient data as possible and apply their machine-learning algorithms and bio simulations to develop treatments and companion diagnostics for MetSyn for commercialisation via partnerships with multinationals in the biopharma and diagnostics industries.

The start-up is collecting data from DNA, blood and urine samples, alongside medical diagnoses, laboratory test results and clinical outcomes over at least five years.

Their tech means they can standardise data and compare it across cohorts and different providers. Potential providers of data include NHS Trusts in the UK and hospitals in Spain, Scandinavian countries and SE Asia.

This data will help provide biopharma companies with insights into endotypes (disease conditions), the characteristics and different causes of MetSyn and accompanying conditions as well as possible treatments and how and when medical practitioners should intervene.

This could mean MultiOmic could allow Biopharma companies:

• to reposition approved drugs and enhance the value of existing drug portfolios
• to come up with novel combinations of existing drugs
• to salvage failed and shelved drug assets
• to develop diagnostic assets and spin-outs.

Why does MultiOmic fit the Ada Thesis and what got us excited?

Innovative tech, a radical approach, and a defined and ambitious mission to tackle a growing healthcare issue make MultiOmic a very good fit for our deep tech and healthcare investing strategy.

We were particularly impressed by the team’s commitment; founder Robert Thong has come out of retirement to head up an impressive team in terms of research, tech, and commercial capabilities. His son Alasdair Thong is a co-founder, Non-Executive Director of MultiOmic and an investor through Selvedge Investments, where he is a founding partner.

Robert’s an exceptional CEO with more than 30 years in pharma during which he has forged relationships with biopharma, med-tech and healthcare organisations. He understands the customer inside out; MultiOmic allows him to sell exactly what biopharma companies want to buy.

Success depends on (1) the team’s ability to secure the right quality and quantity of patient data sets and (2) their AI and ML will produce novel and valuable therapeutic or diagnostic assets that big pharma or med-tech will want to acquire.

Crucially, if MultiOmic works, it will make the world a better place.

How did the investment happen?

We have known both Alasdair and Robert since we started Ada Ventures and have co-invested with them in two Ada Ventures Fund I companies, Oxford Medical Products and Carbometrics.

We’ve been tracking MultiOmic’s progress hoping that we would be able to invest out of Ada Fund II when it closed — and we were delighted to be able to do this.

Investing alongside experienced deep-tech and healthcare investors, Hoxton and MMC, sets Robert and the team up extremely well for the next phase of company development.

Looking forward

The business model is simple. MultiOmic will sign increasingly large contracts with bio pharma and med-tech customers, starting with trials and rising to multi-million-dollar commercial contracts in the future.

The initial focus is on Diabetic Kidney Disease — $21 billion is currently spent on drug treatments for this. MultiOmic is in the middle of compiling data sources across the world for this disease; it could be life-changing for patients and disrupt a hugely lucrative industry.