The UT Horizon Fund, a strategic venture fund by the University of Texas system, has made a $593,000 investment in MolecularMatch as part of company’s series A. The round also included angel investors Jack Gill and Nancy Chang of Goose Society and Rice University.
MolecularMatch, which is a personalised medicine startup, now counts a total funding of $3.7m. It plans to use the money to fund its first commercial product: a free web-based service that lets both patients and healthcare professionals identify oncology treatment options and clinical trial recommendations.
MolecularMatch’s technology uses a proprietary algorithm to map a patient’s molecular make-up and compare it against a database of results of other patients with a similar make-up. That way it is able to discern which treatment options may provide the best outcome.
James Welsh, principal founder and chief medical officer at MolecularMatch, said: “We are now at a turning point in the way we diagnose and treat disease. We are now able to take samples of a patient’s tumour, test them at a low cost and find a unique genetic signature. This genetic signature will help us better treat the patient, not just the disease.”