University of Leeds AI spinout adsilico raises £10 million to test medical devices with virtual patients
University of Leeds spinout adsilico has completed a £10 million Series A funding round led by PXN Ventures, with participation from Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk. Its Virtual Chimera platform uses generative AI to generate virtual hearts and blood vessels from anonymized clinical scans, combining physical simulation to assess device performance across patient groups of different ages, sexes, ethnicities and body types. The funding will be used to refine the virtual heart models and expand into neurovascular devices such as flow diverters.
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University of Leeds spinout adsilico has raised £10 million in a Series A funding round to expand its AI-powered simulation technology for assessing medical device performance across diverse virtual patient populations. The round was led by PXN Ventures, with participation from existing investors Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk.
Founded in 2024 by Sheena Macpherson, Dr Nishant Ravikumar and Dr Zeike Taylor, adsilico develops technology that helps medical device manufacturers assess implant performance before progressing to clinical trials.
Clinical trials for medical devices such as heart valves and stents typically involve a few hundred patients, making it difficult to represent the diversity of those who may eventually receive them. Recruiting participants from different demographic groups can also be costly and time-consuming.
To address this gap, adsilico has developed Virtual Chimera, a platform that uses generative AI to create virtual hearts and blood vessels from anonymised clinical scans. Combined with physics-based simulations, these models allow manufacturers to assess device performance across patient populations varying in age, sex, ethnicity, body size and medical conditions.
The platform helps manufacturers make development decisions, including determining appropriate device sizes, identifying higher-risk patients and refining clinical trial strategies. By providing additional evidence alongside existing testing methods, it aims to identify potential problems earlier, support more targeted studies and potentially reduce reliance on animal testing.
adsilico has already completed projects with heart valve and neurovascular device manufacturers, and its cardiac research is set to be presented at TCT, a meeting focused on innovations in structural heart therapies.
Sheena Macpherson, CEO and co-founder of adsilico, commented:
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.
The new funding will support further development of adsilico's virtual heart models and expansion into neurovascular devices, including flow diverters used to treat brain aneurysms. The company also plans to increase its workforce as it extends its technology into additional therapeutic areas.