Akili raises an additional $11.9M; brings Amgen, Merck, Pfizer and Shire to the digital medicine table

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Akili Adds Amgen Ven­tures and M Ven­tures* to Series B Financ­ing, Increas­ing Round to $42.4 Mil­lion (press release):

“Akili Inter­ac­tive Labs, Inc. (“Akili”), a dig­i­tal med­i­cine com­pa­ny devel­op­ing nov­el, non-phar­ma­co­log­i­cal ther­a­peu­tics and diag­nos­tics for cog­ni­tive dis­or­ders, today announced an $11.9 mil­lion expan­sion of its recent Series B financ­ing. Mer­ck Ven­tures BV, Ams­ter­dam, The Nether­lands, a sub­sidiary of Mer­ck KGaA, Darm­stadt, Ger­many (known as M Ven­tures in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da), and Amgen Ven­tures, the ven­ture arm of Amgen, joined exist­ing investors to bring the total Series B pro­ceeds to $42.4 mil­lion. Akili will use the funds to sup­port and expand clin­i­cal devel­op­ment of its clin­i­cal-stage prod­ucts into new areas, with an expand­ed focus on neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion, and to build out its com­mer­cial infra­struc­ture as Akili nears the mar­ket with its late-stage prod­ucts. With the M Ven­tures and Amgen Ven­tures invest­ments, Akili now has four rela­tion­ships with major bio­phar­ma com­pa­nies or their invest­ment affil­i­ates, includ­ing its exist­ing part­ner­ship with Pfiz­er, Inc. and an invest­ment from Shire Pharmaceuticals.

…said Eddie Mar­tuc­ci, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer of Akili. “There exists a tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty to deliv­er med­i­cine that is effi­ca­cious and address­es the needs for safe, non-phar­ma­co­log­i­cal treat­ments in many neu­ro­log­i­cal and men­tal health patient pop­u­la­tions. M Ven­tures’ and Amgen Ven­tures’ sup­port, com­bined with that of our exist­ing investors, will help us con­tin­ue to advance our projects toward commercialization.”

To learn more:

• 2016 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: Rein­vent­ing Brain Health (Decem­ber 6–8, 2016)