Pfizer and Novo Nordisck Invest $9 Million in AMRA

Pfizer and Novo (was founded in 1999 and is fully owned by the Novo Nordisk Foundation) are making contributions to a $9 million funding round for Swedish digital startup AMRA – which specializes in patient stratification technology.

The funds will go to the development of AMRA’s key offering, AMRA Profiler – a technological innovation which enables for highly accurate body fat and muscle measurements depending on a six-minute whole body MRI scan.

AMRA Profiler is the initial technology of its type to get a CE mark for clinical use in Europe.

Its highly accurate approach of calculating body composition makes it suitable for patient stratification, assisting to offer precise diagnoses in metabolic health.

Examples of this include identifying which sufferers could be at high risk of diseases like as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), and more.

In addition to assisting healthcare professionals, the tool could also be utilized in clinical studies as it can assist figure out treatment efficacy and effects on the body.

Co-leaders Pfizer Venture Investments and Nordic VC Novo Seeds were joined by Industrifonden – another Nordic VC fund and current AMRA investor.

Bill Burkoth, executive director at Pfizer Venture Investments said,

“Pfizer Venture Investments spends in growing companies developing technological innovation that can improve Pfizer’s pipeline and shape the future of our industry.”

“AMRA’s disruptive technology provides a personalised medicine strategy to recognize those at-risk of poor metabolic health results. We are very happy to assist AMRA in making considerable progress in this field.”

Søren Møller, managing partner at Novo Seeds stated: “One of the terrific health obstacles worldwide is relevant to ageing and obesity, and there are over 2.1 billion people who are characterised as obese or overweight.

AMRA’s approach offers technology to recognize various classes of obesity and thereby possibly expose high metabolic risk profiles. AMRA has the possibilities to play a essential role for research, clinical development and gradually patient management.”

Pfizer and Novo may be especially interested in the technology as they have comprehensive R&D in the field of metabolic problems. The former currently has 7 cardiovascular and metabolic disease candidates in development, which includes one NASH treatment, 3 diabetes type 2 therapies, one acute coronary syndrome drug and two hyperlipidaemia candidates.

Novo’s pipeline has 7 diabetes drugs and 5 obesity candidates in development.