Sweden’s AMRA receives funding to redefine obesity and support clinical trials

Sweden’s digital health company AMRA has announced an investment of $9m from Pfizer Venture Investments, Novo Seeds and Industrifonden.

This investment will support AMRA’s goal to redefine obesity and metabolic risk with the help of a personalised medicine approach, in addition to supporting clinical trials.

The company proposes to use this funding to study and understand the relationship between fat, muscle and the development of disease.

Pfizer Venture Investments executive director Bill Burkoth said: "Pfizer Venture Investments invests in emerging companies developing technologies that can enhance Pfizer’s pipeline and shape the future of our industry.

"AMRA’s disruptive technology offers a personalised medicine approach to identify those at risk of poor metabolic health outcomes. We are pleased to assist AMRA in making significant progress in this field."

The investment will also enable AMRA to position itself globally and also expand its network among researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

Furthermore, the company will increase its involvement among global population cohorts, research institutions, and hospitals.

Novo Seeds managing partner Søren Møller said: "One of the great health challenges globally is related to ageing and obesity, and there are more than 2.1 billion individuals who are characterised as obese or overweight.

"AMRA’s approach provides technology to identify different classes of obesity and thereby potentially reveal high-metabolic risk profiles." 

AMRA is moving away from body mass index (BMI) and towards the individualised body composition profile (BCP), which offers improved patient stratification.

The company’s technology supports the early detection of treatment efficacy and makes it suitable for clinical trials.

AMRA was founded in 2010 as a spin-out of the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualisation (CMIV), the Department of Biomedical Engineering (IMT), and the Department of Medicine and Health (IMH) at Linköping University.