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Clinical trials platform Ascension-Q lands £250,000 round

Ascension-Q, the clinical research operating system, has secured £250,000 in a pre-seed round led by early-stage focused venture capital firm Jenson Funding Partners.

Key highlights:

The funding will be used by the start-up to continue its mission of enabling as many hospitals and clinics as possible in the UK and Ireland to conduct clinical trials.

In the clinical research drug trials space, the goal is the continued development of new drugs to improve patient care and treatment options. But the work required is complex, since research teams at the ground level often lack the support required to deliver diligent research. This leads to delays and difficulties in recruiting and retaining patients to participate in the trials.

Historically, the drug design process has operated in a top-down approach, the company says, where the decision-making of Contract Research Organisations (CROs) primarily focuses on working with pharmaceutical companies. Rather than site-first, this approach risks shortcuts and pain points in the research process that are often ignored.  

Launched in 2020 by Dr. Amitava Ganguli, Ash Mahmud, and Professor Richard FitzGerald, Ascension-Q sought to change that by creating a platform that helps researchers and operational staff carry out their work more efficiently, in turn improving both the user and patient experience. Its cloud-based platform can be tailored according to site needs and provides real-time metrics on study participants. It also allows for the design and management of studies with multiple cohorts and across multiple sites.

In one hospital that barely conducted research, Ascension-Q was introduced nearly 18 months ago. The hospital has since run six research programmes and is now engaged in its seventh. The use of the platform in that time has enabled the hospital to generate nearly £2m a year.

Ascension-Q is now being used in 16 hospitals and has been utilised during 70 clinical trials, while reaching 5,000 patients on the platform. The company aims to triple the number of hospitals using the platform over the next year, with its sights set on the European market and later the US by 2024.

Dr. Amitava Ganguli, founder and CEO at Ascension-Q, said: “We are delighted in raising investment from Jenson Funding Partners and continuing our incredible journey with their support. AscensionQ was created to tackle the everyday challenges researchers face through automation in one platform, connecting people and not just processes. 2022 was great validation of our system and for 2023 we are excited to push on and help the thousands of research clinics in the UK and beyond.”

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