Adsilico Raises £10M to Test Heart Devices on Virtual Patients

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Adsilico, a University of Leeds spinout, has raised £10 million in a Series A round. PXN Ventures led it, and existing investors Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk took part.

The company simulates how medical devices perform across diverse virtual patient populations. Sheena Macpherson, Dr Nishant Ravikumar and Dr Zeike Taylor founded it in 2024. Its technology helps manufacturers assess implant performance before they move on to clinical trials.

The gap it targets is diversity in trials. Trials of devices such as heart valves and stents typically enrol a few hundred people, so they struggle to reflect the diversity of those who may eventually receive the devices. Recruiting participants from different demographic groups is also costly and time-consuming.

Virtual Chimera

Adsilico's platform is called Virtual Chimera. It uses generative AI to build virtual hearts and blood vessels from anonymised clinical scans. Physics-based simulations then show how a device behaves across patients who vary in age, sex, ethnicity, body size and medical conditions.

Manufacturers can use the output to choose device sizes, spot higher-risk patients and refine clinical trial strategies. The simulations add evidence alongside existing testing methods. They aim to flag problems earlier, support more targeted studies and potentially reduce reliance on animal testing.

The company has already finished projects with heart valve and neurovascular device manufacturers. Its cardiac research is due to be presented at TCT, a meeting focused on innovations in structural heart therapies.

Macpherson, CEO and co-founder, said patients miss out on the chance of a life-saving device, or face uncertainty about whether it will work for them, because people like them were not represented when it was designed and tested. She said adsilico gives manufacturers early insight into the effect of anatomical diversity while it can still shape the design.

The new money will fund further work on the virtual heart models and a move into neurovascular devices, including flow diverters used to treat brain aneurysms. Adsilico also plans to hire more people as it extends the technology to other therapeutic areas.

Source: Tech.eu