Precision psychiatry pioneer Alto Neuroscience raises $35M to advance digital biomarker-to-treatment platform

Alto Neu­ro­science Rais­es $35M Series B Financ­ing (Fins­Mes):

Alto Neu­ro­science, a Los Altos, CA-based neu­ro-tech com­pa­ny which spe­cial­izes in pre­ci­sion psy­chi­a­try, rais­es $35M Series B Financ­ing … The com­pa­ny intends to use the funds to advance lead can­di­dates into Phase 2b stud­ies in major depres­sive dis­or­der … Pro­ceeds from the financ­ing will also be used to progress the company’s arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence-enabled brain bio­mark­er plat­form and launch new clin­i­cal tri­als in areas of high unmet med­ical need. Alto will report Phase 2a data in ear­ly 2023 and fur­ther antic­i­pates Phase 2b data read­outs by ear­ly 2024.

Led by Amit Etkin, M.D., Ph.D., founder and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, Alto Neu­ro­science pro­vides a pre­ci­sion psy­chi­a­try by devel­op­ing tar­get­ed med­i­cines to help patients get bet­ter. Dif­fer­ences in indi­vid­u­als’ biol­o­gy impact how they respond to treat­ment. Its Pre­ci­sion Psy­chi­a­try Plat­form mea­sures brain bio­mark­ers by ana­lyz­ing EEG activ­i­ty, behav­ioral task per­for­mance, wear­able data, genet­ics, and oth­er fac­tors to match each patient with the right Alto drug. The company’s clin­i­cal-stage pipeline includes nov­el drug can­di­dates in depres­sion, PTSD, and oth­er men­tal health con­di­tions, result­ing in the broad­est and most-advanced pre­ci­sion psy­chi­a­try effort.

The Announcement:

Alto Neu­ro­science Announces $35 Mil­lion Series B Financ­ing (press release):

Alto Neu­ro­science today announced the clos­ing of a $35 mil­lion Series B financ­ing led by Lightswitch Cap­i­tal and part­ners of Alkeon Cap­i­tal, with par­tic­i­pa­tion from oth­er new investors includ­ing Sobra­to Cap­i­tal, Novar­tis Phar­ma AG, Val­or Equi­ty Part­ners, Kori­fy Cap­i­tal, Vine Ven­tures, and Gain­gels. The financ­ing also includ­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion from exist­ing investors Ape­iron Group, WhatIf Ven­tures, Wind­ham Ven­ture Part­ners, and oth­ers. This round brings Alto’s total fund­ing to $75 mil­lion to date … In con­junc­tion with the Series B financ­ing, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of Lightswitch Cap­i­tal, Christo­pher Cox, and man­ag­ing direc­tor of Alkeon Cap­i­tal, Jeff Chen, Ph.D., have joined the Alto Board of Direc­tors. Addi­tion­al­ly, Bob Baloh, M.D., Ph.D., glob­al head of neu­ro­science at the Novar­tis Insti­tutes for Bio­Med­ical Research (NIBR), will join as a board observer.

News in Context:

• Machine-learn­ing study finds EEG brain sig­na­tures that pre­dict response to anti­de­pres­sant treatments