AI genetics startup uBiome raises $83 Million in funding
uBiome runs test sequences on the micro-organisms present in the human body and is now extending towards drug base development.
uBiome is the world’s first medical research center that has used human Microbiome with citizen science. This San Francisco based medical startup found by Jessica Richman and Zachary Apte has successfully proved itself in the field of healthcare, machine learning, and quantified-self. Ever since its commencement on 1st November 2012 the company has 3 commercial based products:
- Smart gut: A stool test machine ordered by the doctors which detect innards of the client with chronic gut situations as IBD, IBS, Crohn’s.
- SmartJane: A women’s health test doctor-ordered that genotypes all 19 clinically relevant strains of HPV, detects four common STDs (chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis, and mycoplasma genitalium), and analyses more than 20 vaginal microbes associated with bacterial vaginitis and other conditions.
- Explorer™: Basically, food and wellness which can be effective in the gut which is measured by this consumer-based product.
More than 200 research institutions around the world, which includes the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC), US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Harvard University, Stanford University, University of California, San Francisco, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oxford University, and the University of Sydney have collaborated with uBiome.
The startup has cultivated probiotics into the lifestyle as the Microbiome is much more easily changed through their artificial intelligence. It has fostered the role of microorganisms in the field of healthcare and wellness.
Boosted by Series C funding, the firm has gathered therapies which would treat conditions like cancer, autoimmune and metabolic disorders by acting on the Microbiomes. New treatments have been unleashed by the scientists who have been working on ways to use Microbiome to heal arduous diseases. New companies have been formed in the medical and agricultural categories which have an approach to various new aspects with this initiation.
A headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts has been planned to start by the firm through the appointment of former Novartis CEO Joe Jimenezto in its board.
For research purposes, it will act in a way that the information stays within the firm, but the users of different tests can choose to share their data.
The firm or its collaborative partner can find potential drugs that can further be developed using the data provided by the clients or patients.
The candidate applicable of the drugs can be in one of the three groups:
- Drugs in the form of bugs (microbes added to a person’s system to treat a condition)
- Bugs as a factor for drugs (treatments that target microbes)
- Bugs help in making drugs (treatments derived from a particular microbe).
The Series C funding would be the next step to future as the company started with a simple health product for better understandability of people on Microbiomes, which further led them to clinical and laboratory testing on the same in the year 2015. And are now poised for expansion which would provide a portfolio, increase focus on patent assets, and further raise their clinical profile, especially as they begin to focus on commercialization of drug discovery and development of their patent assets.
