Inato, a Parisian startup revamping clinical trial enrollment, has pulled in a $14 million Series A round. Obvious Ventures and Cathay Innovation headed the raise, which also saw support from prior backers Serena and Fly Ventures.

WHAT THEY DO

Inato has developed a platform that helps biopharma clients select the optimal site for their clinical studies. Its technology incorporates logistical data points such as patient access, site staff capacity, doctor interest and ongoing competition to highlight the in-network partner sites where an investigation is likely to pick up the most traction among patients.

The company says that this approach streamlines study design and cut down the cost of replacing an underperforming site.

“Five percent of the world’s research sites are conducting the vast majority of today’s clinical trials. When you consider that the average cost of bringing a drug to market is around $2 billion, with about two-thirds of those costs tied to clinical trials, it’s clear there’s an urgent need for greater efficiency,” Kourosh Davarpanah, CEO and cofounder of Inato, said in a statement. “Our mission is to bring new doctors and their patients into the clinical research ecosystem to unlock the potential of the many unengaged research sites—so biopharma can bring innovative therapies to market faster.”

According to the company’s funding announcement, Inato’s platform has been employed in more than 50 trials conducted across more than 2,000 research sites. In all, the platform’s database includes historical site performance across 1,500 studies and 17,000 sites.

WHAT IT’S FOR

The startup said that it is aiming to build out the predictive capabilities of its clinical trial platform.

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Digital technologies and platforms seeking to revamp the long and costly clinical trial process have been proliferating over the better part of the decade, and many major pharmas are starting to take notice. These tools range in size and aim, and on the patient matching side include startups like Deep 6 AI, Clinical Trial Connect, SubjectWell and PatientWing.

ON THE RECORD

“Inato recognizes that the future of clinical trials is sitting right in front of us. Their managed marketplace approach ensures that sites are selected based on merit and their ability to contribute towards the only outcome that matters: enrolling patients and helping to get treatments to market,” Nan Li, managing director with Obvious Ventures, who will be joining Inato’s board, said in a statement. “There is a long history of manual, inefficient marketplaces being streamlined by technology — clinical trials is next, and may be the most important category of them all.”