Medical device manufacturers now have a new tool to evaluate how implants perform across patient populations that clinical trials alone cannot adequately represent. adsilico, a spinout from the University of Leeds, has closed a £10 million Series A round led by PXN Ventures, with backing from returning investors Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk.
The company, established in 2024 by Sheena Macpherson, Dr Nishant Ravikumar and Dr Zeike Taylor, tackles a persistent challenge in medical device development: traditional clinical trials for products like heart valves and stents enrol only a few hundred participants, leaving gaps in demographic representation. Assembling diverse trial cohorts demands substantial resources and extended timelines.
adsilico's answer is Virtual Chimera, a platform that harnesses generative AI to construct virtual hearts and blood vessels derived from anonymised clinical imaging data. When paired with physics-based modelling, the system enables manufacturers to run performance assessments across populations that differ by age, gender, ethnicity, body composition and underlying health conditions.
The technology supports critical manufacturing decisions: choosing appropriate device dimensions, spotting patient subgroups at elevated risk and refining the design of clinical studies. By layering this evidence onto conventional testing approaches, adsilico aims to surface design flaws sooner, enable more focused trials and potentially diminish dependence on animal models.
adsilico has already collaborated with manufacturers of heart valve and neurovascular devices. The company's cardiac research findings will be presented at TCT, a conference dedicated to advances in structural heart intervention.
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 weren't represented when it was designed and tested. We give medical device manufacturers early insight into the impact of anatomical diversity when it can still shape the design and help avoid costly mistakes or harm to patients.
Sheena Macpherson, CEO and co-founder of adsilico
The fresh capital will fuel advancement of adsilico's cardiac simulation models and broaden the platform's reach into neurovascular applications, particularly flow diverters for treating brain aneurysms. The company intends to expand its team and push into new therapeutic domains.
Source: Tech.eu
