Lindus Health is the ‘Anti-CRO’ Fixing the Broken Clinical Trial Industry, Setting the Stage for Greater Scientific Innovation and Lower Healthcare Costs
The Company Offers Clinical Trials that are up to Three Times Faster and Produce Demonstrably Better Quality Trial Data than Traditional Players
The Series B was Led by Balderton Capital and Will Be Used to Further Develop Lindus Health’s Proprietary AI- and Technology-Enabled Delivery of Clinical Trials
Lindus Health, “the anti-CRO” running radically faster, more reliable clinical trials, announced today it has raised $55M in Series B funding. The round was led by new investor Balderton Capital, with support from Visionaries Club and existing investors Creandum, Firstminute, and Seedcamp. The company is backed by a star-studded strategic advisory board, including Robert S. Langer, founder of Moderna and over 40 other biotechnology companies, and Tim Garnett, former CMO at Eli Lilly, amongst others.
As the only major provider offering fully integrated CRO services and in-house trial management technology, Lindus Health is uniquely positioned to leverage big data and AI. The $55M in new funding will allow the company to further develop their AI technology and eClinical platform, Citrus, to optimize study design, automate central monitoring of study data, enable instant biostatistics, and more, as well as hiring in key areas including clinical operations and product development.
All new medical treatments must undergo rigorous testing through clinical trials, which are run by contract research organizations (CROs), to demonstrate that they are safe and effective. CROs are notorious for running trials over time and over budget – 85% of clinical trials are delayed – and the clinical research process has become exponentially slower and more expensive over the last two decades. The CRO industry has remained stagnant with extremely limited adoption of technology or modern approaches to streamline clinical development. This ultimately hinders the pace treatments can reach patients and drives up research and healthcare costs. From 2021 to 2022 alone, the cost of developing a single drug was estimated to have increased by almost $300M. These costs are passed on to patients in the form of higher drug prices and insurance premiums.
Lindus Health is disrupting the $112B CRO industry with its tech-first “anti-CRO” approach, thanks to a combination of in-house technology and vertical integration of services. The company has leaned heavily into the power of AI and automation through their proprietary clinical trial software platform, Citrus. It also built sophisticated methods for central patient recruitment and enabling new trial designs. This has resulted in massive efficiency gains, with clinical trials that are up to three times faster and produce demonstrably better quality trial data, ultimately setting the stage for greater scientific innovation and lower healthcare costs.
“The antiquated CRO model is failing the industry and failing patients, with inefficiencies and misaligned incentives propelling costs and causing researchers to stumble before their breakthroughs can reach patients,” said Meri Beckwith, Co-Founder of Lindus Health. “Lindus breaks the cycle by completely reinventing the way clinical trials operate, allowing life science companies to iterate faster.”
“The last 20 years have seen huge breakthroughs in fundamental scientific research, but this isn’t impacting the general population because of the artificial bottleneck that clinical trials create,” said Michael Young, Co-Founder of Lindus Health. “We’re fixing that with a new paradigm for running trials underpinned by technology. That doesn’t just lead to faster trials, it changes the way companies can think about drug development going from waterfall big bets to agile research.”
Launched in 2021, Lindus Health has operated a total of 42 end-to-end clinical trials, making an impact across a broad range of market segments including psychiatry, diagnostics, and respiratory health. The company has enrolled over 36,000 patients in their trials across North America and Europe, including collaborations with Aktiia on a 7,500-patient device study and Pharmanovia on a Phase IV trial for insomnia.
“We’re thrilled to partner with Lindus Health in their mission to improve the clinical research ecosystem,” said Suranga Chandratillake, General Partner at Balderton. “In an industry marked by slow growth and fragmentation, their vision for how clinical trials should operate and unwavering commitment to help improve patient outcomes puts them on a completely different playing field than other companies in this space. With the last two decades of developments in the life sciences and artificial intelligence, we are at the cusp of an exciting new wave of drug discovery, Lindus’ pioneering mission to build the anti-CRO will enable the translation of these discoveries into the therapeutics that will improve the health and lives of millions of people.”
Lindus Health’s pioneering use of machine learning (ML) to predict clinical trial outcomes from historical trial data and optimize study design has earned recognition in Nature. The company also facilitated foundational research into perceptions on clinical trial participation across various demographic groups, conducted alongside Oxford University, highlighting its commitment to turning patient insights into actionable steps that improve trial outcomes. Lindus has earned numerous accolades such as inclusion in WIRED Startups 100, Sifted, and others that reflect Lindus’ growing influence on the way clinical trials are executed and managed.
This latest funding marks a pivotal step in Lindus Health’s journey to create monumental change in the way clinical research is conducted. By breaking free from outdated industry norms, the company is unlocking the potential for groundbreaking treatments to reach patients more efficiently, setting the stage for better healthcare for all.
To learn more about Lindus Health and its bespoke CRO, site, and technology solutions for clinical trials, visit lindushealth.com.
About Lindus Health
Lindus Health is an anti-CRO running radically faster, more reliable clinical trials for life science pioneers – bringing ground-breaking treatments to patients more quickly. This is achieved through a commercial model that aligns incentives (fixed-priced quotes per study, with milestone-based payments), a world-class clinical operations team with its unique software platform, and access to over 40 million Electronic Health Records.
Clinical trials are the biggest bottleneck to advances in healthcare. Lindus Health removes this constraint through end-to-end execution of clinical studies driven by technology and forward-thinking approaches to clinical operations.
To date, Lindus Health has delivered clinical trials across the US, UK, and Europe to tackle a range of conditions, including diabetes, asthma, acne, social anxiety, major depressive disorder, hypertension, chronic fatigue syndrome, and insomnia. The company has raised over $80M from investors including Peter Thiel, Balderton, Creandum, Firstminute Capital, and Seedcamp.
About Balderton Capital
Balderton Capital is a multistage venture firm with more than two decades of experience supporting Europe’s best founders from Seed to IPO. We have both early and growth funds and invest across the technology sector, with a proven track record backing AI, fintech, B2B SaaS, digital health, mobility, gaming, and marketplace companies. Previous investments include Darktrace, Depop, Flywire, Kobalt, MySQL, Nutmeg, Peakon, Recorded Future, Talend, and THG. Balderton’s current portfolio includes: Aircall, Beauty Pie, Contentful, Dream Games, GoCardless, Lendable, Matillion, Merama, Photoroom, Revolut, Tibber, Wayve, Writer, and ZOE.
Originally announced January 22nd, 2025
