Country for PR: United Kingdom
Contributor: PR Newswire Europe
Wednesday, May 12 2021 - 10:01
AsiaNet
Huma raises $130 million financing to scale its digital health platform for better care and research
LONDON and NEW YORK, May 12, 2021, /PRNewswire-AsiaNet/--

The investment arms of leading health and technology companies, Bayer, Hitachi, 
Samsung, Sony Innovation Fund by IGV, Unilever and the PE fund HAT, are 
financing Huma to bring proactive, predictive care to all.

Huma Therapeutics [http://www.huma.com/ ] Limited today announces the 
completion of its latest funding round with financing of approximately $130 
million. The investment will scale Huma's modular platform which can power 
digital 'hospitals at home' nationally, and support the pharmaceutical and 
research industries to run the largest ever decentralized clinical trials. 
Huma's platform combines predictive algorithms, digital biomarkers and 
real-world data to advance proactive care and research.

Leaps by Bayer and Hitachi Ventures led the Series C funding round, which also 
saw new strategic and financial investors become shareholders. Samsung Next, 
Sony Innovation Fund by IGV*, Unilever Ventures and HAT Technology & Innovation 
Fund by HAT, as well as individuals Nikesh Arora (former president of SoftBank) 
and Michael Diekmann (Chairman of Allianz) are also new shareholders.

A further commitment of $70 million that can be exercised at a later date has 
also been agreed as part of the Series C funding round and takes the total 
financing raised to more than $200 million. Goldman Sachs International acted 
as lead placement agent to Huma. HSBC Bank plc± and Nomura acted as joint 
placement agents, with the latter also becoming a shareholder.

The new investment will be used to expand Huma's digital platform in the US, 
Asia and the Middle East, with Huma having recently been named Europe's fastest 
growing healthcare company by the Financial Times1.  Huma has established a 
reputation as a trusted health technology and innovation partner to four 
national governments (England's NHS, Wales, Germany and UAE). Its digital 
'hospital at home' was co-created with clinicians and has been independently 
shown[2],[3] 
[https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/media/documents/Evaluation_of_the_remote_digital_care_p
latform_221220.pdf ] to almost double clinical capacity, reduce hospital 
readmissions by over a third and has patient adherence levels of over 90%. The 
service is supporting governments' pandemic responses on a not-for-profit basis 
and is now used for a range of patients including those going through knee- and 
hip-replacement surgery e.g. with Smith+Nephew4. 
[https://www.smith-nephew.com/news-and-media/media-releases/news/smithnephew-and
-huma-develop-remote-patient-monitoring-app-to-assist-the-safe-restart-of-uk-ort
hopaedic-surgery/ ]

Huma advanced its work in the US in 2021 with an experienced leadership team 
that has fostered new partnerships with clinical research organisations, health 
care providers, payers, research organisations, and technology companies.

Huma works with leading life science companies including AstraZeneca, Bayer and 
Janssen and academic institutions such as Stanford Medicine, the Johns Hopkins 
Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Cambridge5,6. Huma's 
research at the intersection of predictive care and machine learning has been 
peer-reviewed and published across a range of scientific and medical 
journals[7],[8],[9],[10],[11].  

Huma is bringing in new talent to every aspect of the organisation from bench 
to boardroom to scale plans for global expansion. Dr Claudia Suessmuth 
Dyckerhoff joined Huma's Board of Directors in April, bringing a wealth of 
global experience in life sciences and healthcare. In the past year, the Huma 
leadership team has matured with the recruitment of specialists across 
technology and AI, legal, healthcare, life sciences and corporate affairs[12].  

Dan Vahdat, Founder and CEO of Huma, said, "This is a pivotal moment in Huma's 
development. We have exceptional partners and strategic investors who will 
support us in our mission to help people worldwide live longer and fuller 
lives. We're already demonstrating how 'hospital at home' can transform 
healthcare, and how decentralized clinical trials can advance research in ways 
that weren't imaginable even one year ago. Now we want to accelerate the pace 
of change and continue to innovate for better care and research worldwide."

Alan Milburn, former UK Health Secretary and Chairman of Huma's Board, said, 
"This is a significant moment in Huma's history and I will work to build 
enduring, trusted relationships with our new partners. We are living through 
unprecedented times and the importance of health and well-being is underlined 
as never before. Together with our partners we can use our expertise, 
technology, and innovation to change the face of healthcare and research and 
impact people's health everywhere."

Dr Claudia Suessmuth Dyckerhoff, Huma Board Director, said: "The pandemic has 
exposed weaknesses across health systems around the world but through 
collaboration, innovation, and compassionate leadership Huma can support faster 
and safer care for patients through digital technologies and rapid access to 
treatments by accelerating clinical research."

Huma's ambition to improve people's health across the world will be accelerated 
with its new global partnerships. Juergen Eckhardt, Head of Leaps by Bayer, 
comments, "Aligned with the vision of Leaps by Bayer, Huma's expertise and 
technology will help drive a global paradigm shift towards prevention and care 
and may boost research efforts using data and digital technology. We invest 
into the most disruptive technologies of our time that have the potential to 
change the world for the better. As an early investor into Huma we know how 
perfectly the company fits into that frame as one of the leading digital 
innovators in healthcare and lifesciences."

Keiji Kojima, Executive Vice President of Hitachi's Smart Life division, added, 
"Huma has built a comprehensive remote patient monitoring platform and 
established a strong track-record and we are excited to be working with Huma to 
bring its world-leading health technology to new markets in Asia. We believe 
that together we can advance new digital health products to power better care 
and research for all."

Jonathan Machado, Senior Investment Director of Samsung Next, said, "Huma is 
advancing the necessary transition of medicine from reactive to proactive, and 
we are thrilled to be a part of their journey. The company's evidence-based 
approach, validated by leading scientific publications, together with their 
impressive record of rapid, large-scale delivery is unparalleled. We are 
excited to explore how the Huma platform and its digital biomarkers portfolio 
could work with the Samsung ecosystem for lasting impact in proactive care 
across hospitals, life sciences and population health initiatives."

Gen Tsuchikawa, CEO and Chief Investment Manager for Sony Innovation Fund (SIF) 
and Chief Investment Officer for Innovation Growth Ventures (IGV), said, "We 
believe Huma's digital 'hospital at home' platform and data driven approach is 
redefining healthcare across the globe. We're excited to support Huma as they 
continue to accelerate their work in the US, Europe, Middle East and Asia."

Ignazio Castiglioni, CEO of HAT, said, "Huma's pioneering technology can be a 
complete game-changer for the health industry. HAT, with its fourth PE fund, is 
thrilled to partner with Huma and their world-class people by supporting the 
company in the next phase of this exciting journey."

About Huma

Huma is a global health technology company that helps people live longer, 
fuller lives. Our modular platform supports digital 'hospitals at home' across 
different disease areas. In life sciences we power some of the world's largest 
decentralized clinical trials and studies. Our platform combines predictive 
algorithms, digital biomarkers and real-world data to advance proactive, 
predictive care and research.

Our 'hospitals at home' help care for patients across the England NHS, Wales, 
Germany, and the UAE — evidence shows they can double clinical capacity, reduce 
readmission rates by a third, and reduce costs whilst providing safe, 
high-quality care. We offer Covid-19 digital services, not-for-profit, to 
national governments to help fight against the pandemic and have shipped over a 
million devices that complement our 'hospitals at home' to help power them. 
www.huma.com

Additional resources:

1. Huma named Europe's fastest growing healthcare company: 
https://huma.com/Huma-FT1000-Press-Release.pdf 
2. NHSX report into the impact of Huma's digital 'hospital at home' for 
Covid-19 patients: 
https://www.nhsx.nhs.uk/media/documents/Evaluation_of_the_remote_digital_care_platform_221220.pdf 

3. Huma's digital 'hospital at home' for Covid-19 patients is part of a project 
shortlisted for HSJ Award 2021: 
https://huma.com/thoughtpiece/hsj-value-awards-2021 
4. Huma operates peri-operative care for patients undergoing knee- and 
hip-replacements: 
https://www.smith-nephew.com/news-and-media/media-releases/news/smithnephew-and-huma-develop-remote-patient-monitoring-app-to-assist-the-safe-restart-of-uk-orthopaedic-surgery/ 

5. Huma is helping to power research detecting Covid-19 in asymptomatic 
patients as part of the Fenland research study by University of Cambridge's MRC 
Epidemiology unit 
[https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/university-of-cambridge-researchers-
and-huma-begin-in-depth-study-of-early-detection-of-covid-19-infection-875563042
.html ]
6. Huma is helping to power research into a decentralized digital health trial 
for patients with atrial-fibrillation: Bayer and Stanford University's Center 
for Digital Health Decentralized Trial in Atrial Fibrillation Patients (DeTAP) 
study 
[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bayer-clinical-trials-collaborate-road-digitaliz
ation-moeller-md/ ]
7. Huma published research into using data from wearable heart rate monitors to 
assess cardiovascular health: Sensors [https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/21/4/1463 
]
8. Huma published research on deep learning with wearable based heart rate 
variability for prediction of mental and general health: Journal of Biomedical 
Informatics 
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1532046420302380?via%3Di
hub ]
9. Huma published research into using smartphone data to predict 'all cause 
mortality': JMIR mHealth [https://mhealth.jmir.org/2021/2/e25655 ]
10. Huma helped publish research into the impact of digital health through an 
app in acute medicine: JMIR Formative Research [https://doi.org/10.2196/23190 ]
11. Huma's work on digital Covid-19 'hospitals at home' was discussed in the 
British Medical Journal: The British Medical Journal 
[https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2119 ]
12. Huma hires leaders in digital health: 
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/global-digital-health-leader-huma-announces-us-expansion-to-advance-virtual-care-and-research-301216230.html 

13. Huma has been selected to be part of the World Economic Forum's Global 
Innovators Community, 'an invitation-only group of the world's most promising 
start-ups and scale-ups that are at the forefront of technological and business 
model model innovation': https://www.weforum.org/about/global-innovators/ 
14. Huma acquires Biobeats and TLT: 
https://huma.com/files/HumaRebrandPressRelease_20200416.pdf

*Innovation Growth Ventures Co., Ltd. (IGV) is managed by Sony Innovation Fund 
and Daiwa Capital Holdings.

± HSBC Bank plc ("HSBC"), which is authorised by the Prudential Regulation 
Authority and regulated in the United Kingdom by the Financial Conduct 
Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, is acting as financial 
adviser to Huma Therapeutics and no one else in connection with the matters 
described in this Announcement and will not be responsible to anyone other than 
Huma Therapeutics for providing the protections afforded to clients of HSBC, or 
for providing advice in connection with the matters referred to herein. Neither 
HSBC nor any of its group undertakings or affiliates owes or accepts any duty, 
liability or responsibility whatsoever (whether direct or indirect, whether in 
contract, in tort, under statute or otherwise) to any person who is not a 
client of HSBC in connection with this Announcement or any matter referred to 
herein.

SOURCE: Huma
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