Amra, a personalised medicine spinout of Linköping University, raised $9m in a series A round on Tuesday from investors including Stiftelsen Industrifonden, the investment arm of the government of Sweden.
The round was co-led by Pfizer Venture Investments and Novo Seeds, respective investment vehicles of pharmaceutical firms Pfizer and Novo.
Founded in 2010, Amra has developed a cloud-based platform that analyses data from a six-minute, whole-body MRI scan and translates it into precise fat and muscle measurements.
The company aims to help better understand how the relationship between fat and muscle affects metabolic risk, obesity and the development of conditions such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
The technology also has applications in clinical trials, as it is able to detect the efficiency of treatments.
Amra is based on research conducted at Linköping University’s Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization, Department of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Medicine and Health.
The funding will enable the company to expand into the US, through a new subsidiary. The company also aims to grow its network of pharmaceutical companies and researchers, as well as partner research institutions and hospitals.
Industrifonden previously invested SKr5m ($500,000) in Amra in 2014, before topping it up by an additional SKr10m a year later.
Søren Møller, managing partner at Novo Seeds, said: “One of the great health challenges globally is related to ageing and obesity, and there are over 2.1 billion individuals who are characterised as obese or overweight.
“Amra’s approach provides technology to identify different classes of obesity and thereby potentially reveal high metabolic risk profiles. Amra has the potential to play a vital role for research, clinical development and eventually patient management.”
