SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rune Labs, Inc., a developer of software that enables the development and delivery of the next wave of neuroscience therapeutics, today announced that it secured a $5 million seed round led by DigiTx Partners. Earlier investors including TruVenturo, Moment Ventures, Loup Ventures and Sabbatical Ventures participated in the round. Since the company’s founding in 2018, Rune Labs has raised a total of $7.3 million.
Rune Labs partners with leading med-tech and pharma companies to label, organize, and analyze brain data. Rune Labs is particularly focused on neuromodulation therapies such as Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). These device-based therapies generate a lot of data, including directly sensed brain signals. This data is currently underutilized in clinical trials and patient care as DBS and TMS manufacturers do not have a way to manage brain data at a large scale.
“Over the past two decades, we have witnessed tremendous improvements in neurostimulation devices for multiple neurologic conditions. What we are now seeing is the power of the information that could be derived from these devices. The technology Rune Labs is developing with neurologic and biometric data will optimize clinical care for many individuals with debilitating neurological and mental health conditions,” said David J. Kim, Managing Director, DigiTx Partners.
With Rune Labs’ platform, brain data can be sequenced both longitudinally for a single patient and across multiple patients, studies, and centers to be analyzed with machine learning tools. Able to work with industry leading systems from Medtronic, Abbott and others as well as mobile health apps and devices like Apple Watch, and fully HIPAA compliant, Rune Labs can enhance precision therapy delivery to patients to further personalize neuromodulation to better control their symptoms.
“This round of funding, following closely on last year’s, continues to validate our approach, technology and strategy,” said Brian Pepin, founder and CEO, Rune Labs. “Strong financial backing from credible partners and world-class academic collaborators continues to position us to help better understand the brain in order to improve neuromodulation therapies that can improve the quality of patients’ lives.”
The company will use the funds to continue to invest in R&D and to develop additional products.
Strong Academic Partnerships
Rune Labs also announced an agreement to collaborate on research for University of Minnesota’s upcoming OCD Adaptive DBS studies, under Alik Widge, MD, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry at UM’s Medical School.
Over the past 12 months, Rune Labs has signed university collaborations with the following programs: UCSF’s Parkinson’s Adaptive DBS, University of Washington’s Parkinson’s DBS Remote-Monitoring, Mount Sinai’s Depression Adaptive DBS, Brown University and Baylor University’s OCD Adaptive DBS, and others.
"The Rune Labs platform has made communication between data acquired from patients implanted at Mount Sinai in New York with the analytic team at Georgia Tech nearly effortless and has proved essential to visualize the data and easily check data quality," said Helen S. Mayberg, M.D., Professor of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience, and Founding Director of the Nash Family Center for Advanced Circuit Therapeutics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
“Rune Lab’s software platform lets us collect key metrics about patient motor state using a dedicated Apple Watch and companion app platform which then integrates and synchronizes with neural data all in a secure, HIPAA compatible cloud environment. With their software, we can view patient state and algorithm performance in near real time and make decisions regarding adaptive DBS parameters, which we then update remotely,” said Ro'ee Gilron, Ph.D., a researcher at the UCSF Weill Institute of Neurosciences and a member of Rune Labs’ scientific advisory board.
About Rune Labs
Rune Labs, Inc. takes brain imaging and electrophysiology data generated in the course of clinical studies and patient care and makes this data useful for neuroscience therapeutics. We partner closely with med-tech and pharma companies to help develop and deliver precision therapies for Parkinson's disease, Epilepsy, Depression, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and other brain diseases. For more information visit www.runelabs.io.
