Pfizer’s venture capital arm has invested in AMRA, a Swedish digital health firm that was the first in the world to transform images from a six-minute whole body MRI scan into precise fat and muscle measurements.
Pfizer Venture Investments, in conjunction with Novo Seeds and Industrifonden, has put $9m into AMRA, whose areas of focus include obesity, diabetes, oncology and rare diseases.
Bill Burkoth, executive director at Pfizer Venture Investments 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.”
Headquartered in Sweden, AMRA was founded in 2010 as a digital health spin-out of the Center for Medical Image Science and Visualization (CMIV), the Department of Biomedical Engineering (IMT), and the Department of Medicine and Health (IMH) at Linköping University.
Following the new investment AMRA’s plans include setting up a US subsidiary and expand its network among leading researchers and pharmaceutical companies.
In doing so its aim is to support patient stratification in clinical trials, the understanding of treatment effects on body composition, and the detection of early signs of treatment efficacy.
“AMRA is now one step closer to redefining obesity,” the firm said in a statement.
