Monument Therapeutics will focus on applying digital biomarkers to neuroscience drug development
Monument Therapeutics, the stratified medicine company, confirmed on Monday that it has raised £2.625m in seed funding to spin out of Cambridge Cognition.
The new company’s focus will be on applying digital biomarkers to neuroscience drug development with the aim of matching patient sub-groups with approximately targeted compounds.
Monument Therapeutics applies a novel drug development strategy, leveraging digital assessments of cognition to match patients with new pharmaceutical treatments.
The company has a pipeline of promising drug development programmes, with the most advanced two being for cognitive impairment in schizophrenia and post-operative cognitive dysfunction (“POCD”).
Schizophrenia affects around 20m people across the world, however there are no approved treatments for the common and disabling cognitive impairment associated with the disorder.
POCD is a condition arising from major surgery, which can result in cognitive impairment for patients over the age of 65 both immediately (50-80% at discharge) and persistently (10-30% six months post-surgery). Almost 250m major surgical procedures are performed globally every year but there is no dedicated treatment for POCD.
In both approaches, Monument Therapeutics is de-risking development by repurposing drugs with a favourable safety profile and proven mechanisms of action, and combining these with proprietary cognitive stratification tools licensed from Cambridge Cognition.
To develop these programmes as an independent company, Monument Therapeutics has secured £2.625m in funding from a consortium of experienced technology and life science investors led by Catapult Ventures’ Greater Manchester and Cheshire Life Sciences Fund and Neo Kuma Ventures, with participation from o2h Ventures, Wren Capital, and angel investors.
Jenny Barnett, Cambridge Cognition’s Chief Scientific Officer, who has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Monument Therapeutics, said: “A major challenge when developing drugs for patients with psychiatric and neurological conditions is that clinical diagnoses are usually imprecise: two people with the same diagnosis may have little overlap in their biology or symptoms.”
“Fortunately, digital phenotyping can help to stratify these patients, much as areas such as oncology have done with genetic testing. In pursuit of this goal, Monument Therapeutics has put together a team with deep drug development knowledge coupled with unique digital biomarker expertise to bring innovative stratified treatments to market. We are grateful to Cambridge Cognition for incubating the company and for the funding received from the incoming investors.”