Plenty of people have clever ideas for innovative pieces of tech. Not all of them can turn them from a theory to a working model, and even if they do get that far, they’re still a long way from making it widely available in homes and institutions around the world. That’s why it’s a big deal when a company like Huma manages to secure the investment to scale up its platform on a much broader scale (https://longevity.technology/news/humas-130m-raise-will-scale-its-digital-health-platform/).
Huma Therapeutics Ltd. was founded in London in 2011. It still has headquarters in Westminster, but it’s also spread across the globe with its healthcare technology. One of its biggest innovations has been “hospitals at home”, a digital program that reduced readmissions into hospitals and improved clinical capacity. In a world where getting patients to adhere to treatment protocols is an ongoing challenge, this is an impressive accomplishment.
Over the last few years, Huma has acquired other companies with wearable and AI technology to help strengthen its overall offering. It has formed partnerships with the NHS in both England and Wales, along with the governments and respective healthcare systems of Germany and the UAE. In 2021, it dramatically increased its presence in the United States as it built new relationships with healthcare providers, research institutions and other tech companies.
It sounds like Huma was already doing pretty well and didn’t need much help. Then a host of big names, including the Sony Innovation Fund by IGV, Samsung, Hitachi, Unilever, Bayer and HAT (a PE fund) managed to pull together $130 million between them, with a future potential for $70 million. That kind of money can lead to lots of exciting developments for any company.
What’s the plan for this money? Well, some of it’s going to be spent on clinical trials that will be the biggest-ever clinical trials to be run on a decentralized basis by the research and pharmaceutical industries. It’s also going to be used to scale up the hospitals at home platform through America, the Middle East and Asia.
Interest in the kind of work Huma is doing is widespread. It’s just one of the companies pushing at the frontier of this kind of technology, but it’s certainly taking a pioneering position ahead of many of the others. Its success is an indicator of how attitudes and priorities in society toward healthcare are changing.
