Numares AG cashes in €20m from EIB

The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced to invest up to €20m "quasi-equity" loan in German Numares Health AG. The Regensburg-based company has developed a fully automated in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) platform called AXINON^® that appears to improve diagnostic quality for chronic diseases of the kidney, heart and liver, as well as cancer and multiple sclerosis.

AXINON^® links nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements of multiple metabolomic blood or urine biomarkers with artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify high-risk patients early in disease progression and thus enable earlier treatment. For example, with Numares technology, rejections reactions following kidney transplantations can be detected sooner and more accurately. A noninvasive test that could reduce the need for invasive kidney biopsy following transplant was launched in 2017.

Numares said it  will use the EIB financingto advance research and development. Existing investors will contribute to an additional €20 million for investments in the mass marketing of the proprietary technology products in the European Union and the United States.

The loan is part of the European Guarantee Fund’s venture debt financing. This product has been designed in response to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, which have further deteriorated commercial banks’ willingness to provide financing for risk investment into innovative technology companies like Numares. “We are proud to support this innovative health-company,” said EIB-Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle. “We see the promise of improved multi-marker diagnostics that could help patients where single marker diagnostics have failed or been inadequate.”  

Most recently, a Berlin-based research group headed by Ulf Landmesser published data using a similar technology combination that proved that the AI-enabled NMR-biomarker approach actually improved prediction of patients with heart failure, stroke and diabetes in early disease stage or before the manifestation of symptoms.