Member Article

Octopus Ventures co-leads €10m funding round for drug access platform

Dutch startup myTomorrows, which has developed a platform that aims to improve access to life-saving drugs for patients, has closed a €10m funding round to help further expand its technology.

Funding for the round was co-led by EQT Ventures and London’s own Octopus Ventures, along with existing investors Balderton Capital and Sofinnova Partners.

Headquartered in Amsterdam, myTomorrows gives physicians access to information about early access and clinical trials of drugs around the world, potentially opening up investigational drugs for their patients would have ran out of other medical avenues.

In return, the platform gives drug developers a medium through which they can make their life saving drugs available on global early access programmes and gives them the ability to gather data at the same time.

The firm, which currently has a presence in 17 countries, is now hoping to scale into the US and Asia, along with further growth in the European Union, Latin American and the Middle East.

Ronald Brus, myTomorrows’ founder, said: “We are delighted to have attracted backing from investors whose contribution will be well beyond simply finances.

“EQT Ventures has unparalleled marketplace experience - and in particular, we’re looking forward to working with Kees Koolen, who has incredible experience in disrupting existing markets through technology, both during his time running Booking.com and as an advisor to Uber.

“Plus the team at Octopus will help us in scaling the business, just as they did so successfully with Graze, Zoopla and Secret Escapes.”

The new growth funding round has also coincided with the appointment of former GlaxoSmithKline Chief Medical Officer, James Shannon, as Chairman of the company’s supervisory board.

Following his appointment, Shannon commented: ““Signalling regarding drug effectiveness will increasingly move to the real world setting with data sets coming from a wider range of patients than are normally included in typical clinical trials.

“myTomorrows changes the drug development model as we know it, for the better. The technology layers make searching and accessing investigational drugs a seamless process for physicians and their patients.”

Luke Hakes, who is Investment Director at Octopus, echoed Shannon’s excitement about the potential of myTomorrows’ drug access platform and said that the technology had genuine potential to have a ‘positive impact’ on users’ lives.

He went on to hint that more healthtech investments could be on the way for the Holborn VC house, and added: “Health tech is a space Octopus has huge interest for, and it’s important that we get behind businesses like myTomorrows that can move the sector on and benefit the global healthcare of tomorrow.”