The London-based predictive artificial intelligence specialist Draper & Dash has secured a £2m investment from alternative lender BOOST&Co, to accelerate the expansion of its operations in the pharmaceutical market.
Since 2015, Draper & Dash has been working with healthcare providers across the globe to streamline processes and ultimately deliver increasingly positive health outcomes. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, the firm’s proprietary software can process several year’s data from existing healthcare systems, recognise emerging trends and implement predictive analytics to make suggestions for relevant remedial actions. What is more, once the system is in place, predictions and outcomes improve over time, through the use of machine learning.
“Covid-19 is an easy example to default to, now that we are all familiar with the impact of the pandemic on the NHS, and our product suite does include an application that many hospitals have been using to manage demand and capacity in the last year,” says Chris Williams, chief financial officer at Draper & Dash. “However, this same technology also enables us to assess increasing A&E admissions, identify bed-blocking and improve other issues that impact overall flow through a hospital. Ultimately, this means more people can be treated and with better outcomes, at a lower cost.”
Flexing to new markets
Having built on the success of its proposition in the healthcare sector, Draper & Dash will now use a £2m investment to further expand its operations into the pharmaceutical market, in recognition that its predictive analytics capabilities can have a significant impact on patient safety, efficacy and overall real-world evidence provision.
“The pharmaceutical industry is always looking at how it can improve drug development – from time to market, to the generation of real-world evidence that proves a drug is effective and safe,” Williams explains. “As an established data science business in the health sector, we have commercial partnerships in place with a number of health systems to access multiple de-identified sources of data, with full patient data protection in place.”
“This means we can use our technology to identify disease patterns and profiles that in turn, accelerates drug development and time to market,” Williams adds.
Major pharmaceutical contract already won
The firm has already won several global master services agreements with major, international pharmaceutical companies, and as it looks to expand as rapidly as possible, it will use the £2m investment to hire pharmaceutical specialists and development experts that will support this growth and accelerate further market expansion.
“Draper & Dash has identified a new market to add to a proven core business,” says Kerry Barron, senior investment manager at BOOST&Co. “This deal is an excellent example of a business recognising that it could flex and expand into a new market and using growth funding to do it. We are thrilled to support the team and look forward to witnessing their growth in the coming months and years.”
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