MOROCCO – UM6P Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm, has announced its investment in Infiuss Health to improve clinical trial participation and health equity in Africa.
Infiuss Health provides clinical trial access to African participants and allows pharmaceutical companies to conduct and monitor these trials via the Infiuss Health Probe Platform.
Through a single dashboard, the all-in-one software platform helps companies to identify and select the right sites for trials, manage the entire research process and to remotely recruit participants.
It also assists companies to collect remote consent, gather, and analyze data and provide virtual support faster and cheaper than third-party contract research organizations.
Through their direct-to-participant approach, they help corporate and academic researchers diversify their cohorts by connecting them directly to thousands of eligible African participants to take part in their clinical studies.
“We’re very pleased to have UM6P Ventures’ support as Infiuss Health continues to grow African clinical trials that will have enormous benefits, including improved healthcare and patient outcomes,” stated Melissa Bime, Founder of Infiuss Health.
Part of the UM6P Ventures’ investment will be used by the startup for its growth plan particularly developing a decentralized SaaS platform to power remote research and clinical trials in Africa.
The financing will also address issues faced by pharmacological companies in their attempt to include a large and varied population within their phased trial cohorts to prove their medical thesis.
“Africans, a significant group of genetically diverse participants, are not traditionally well represented within their demographic profile, rendering their trial outcomes potentially skewed,” UM6P Ventures said.
The investment firm emphasized that there is a need for researchers to select a wider range of people from different demographics to participate in clinical research to reduce bias, promote health equity, and produce innovative scientific findings.
“To date, Africa’s participation is only a small percentage of the global clinical trials landscape, as a result of the regulatory and ethical implications of clinical trials,” the firm noted.
UM6P Ventures highlighted that several individual regulatory bodies have joined efforts to ensure that clinical trials in African countries are conducted in accordance with international best clinical practices and ethical standards.
The firm pointed out that Infiuss Health only services sponsors that have previously been approved by the U.S. FDA, which ensures that trials comply with the exacting framework required by U.S. regulations.
“With new regulatory structures in place in Africa, medicinal effectiveness and availability will be improved,” UM6P Ventures highlighted.
The Chief Executive Officer of UM6P Ventures Yasser Biaz stressed that the clinical trial phase is decisive in the pharmacological development lifecycle, noting that it is a branch of the firm’s Healthtech investment thesis that they have been actively investigating.
“The Infiuss Health team brings a solution, expertise, and experience that adds critical elements to our health science and technology ecosystem. We are confident in their ability to deliver on their value proposition and contribute to the improvement of the health system in Africa,” he added.
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