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52 North Health, a UK and US-based med-tech start-up, has raised £1 million in its first round of funding from leading UK and European specialist investors. The round was led by Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of the University of Cambridge, with participation from Crista Galli Ventures, King’s Health Partners MedTech Innovations, Meltwind, Milltrust Ventures, and a number of angels.
52 North is developing the NeutroCheck, a fully-integrated clinical, AI and medical device-based system for people living with cancer. The NeutroCheck is a point-of-care medical device which can be used by patients outside of hospital to monitor their risk of neutropenic sepsis, a potentially life-threatening complication of chemotherapy.
By enabling at-home monitoring, the NeutroCheck allows significant improvements in health outcomes, quality of life, and safety. A low-cost device, it is designed to improve health equality, as cancer patients from lower socio-economic backgrounds are disproportionately affected by needing to attend hospital urgently.
52 North’s digital platform uses AI to better predict patient risk and outcomes and is intended to have a huge impact on the way healthcare professionals treat patients. “Funding and innovation in oncology often focuses at the level of the cell. 52 North is disrupting cancer tech by innovating at the level of the patient,” said Fiona Pathiraja, Managing Partner of Crista Galli Ventures. “By building a software- and hardware-enabled solution, 52 North aims to reduce the numbers of patients being admitted to hospital with life-threatening neutropenic sepsis.”
Taking its name from the GPS coordinates of Cambridge, where it was founded in 2018, 52 North is on a mission to reinvent the healthcare journey by creating affordable and patient-centred solutions. The company, then called NeutroCheck, participated in the 2018 Postdoc Business Plan Competition, refining its proposition and ultimately winning second place along with a £10,000 investment.
The business is led by a team of multi-disciplinary sector experts, including former lawyer and business development professional Umaima Ahmad (CEO); consultant oncologist Dr Saif Ahmad (Chief Scientific and Medical Officer); data scientist and assistant professor at the University of Cambridge, Dr Mireia Crispin-Ortuzar (Chief Digital Officer); and Harvard University-based biosensor engineer Dr Nicole Weckman (Technology Advisor).
The investment will be used to take the NeutroCheck device through clinical trials in the UK, as well as to deliver on strategic partnerships, including those with the UK Sepsis Trust and Macmillan Cancer Support, in order to define a new clinical pathway for treating suspected neutropenic sepsis, and to ensure people living with disease continue to be at the heart of the product life-cycle.
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