Huma raises $130 million financing to scale its digital health platform for better care and research

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LONDON and NEW YORK , May 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Huma Therapeutics 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 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.

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 Cambridge^5,6. 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 affairs¹². 

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 theUS, 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
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
7. Huma published research into using data from wearable heart rate monitors to assess cardiovascular health: Sensors
8. Huma published research on deep learning with wearable based heart rate variability for prediction of mental and general health: Journal of Biomedical Informatics
9. Huma published research into using smartphone data to predict 'all cause mortality': JMIR mHealth
10. Huma helped publish research into the impact of digital health through an app in acute medicine: JMIR Formative Research
11. Huma's work on digital Covid-19 'hospitals at home' was discussed in the British Medical Journal: The British Medical Journal
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