University of Leeds spinout adsilico has raised £10 million in a Series A funding round to expand its AI-powered simulation technology. The company helps medical device manufacturers test how their products perform across different virtual patient groups before moving to clinical trials. The funding round was led by PXN Ventures, with existing investors Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk also taking part.
Founded in 2024 by Sheena Macpherson, Dr Nishant Ravikumar and Dr Zeike Taylor, adsilico develops technology that allows medical device makers to assess the safety and performance of implants before testing them in human clinical trials.
Clinical trials for devices such as heart valves and stents often involve only a few hundred patients. This can make it difficult to understand how a device might perform in people with different backgrounds and medical conditions. Recruiting participants from a wide range of groups can also be expensive and time-consuming.
To address this challenge, adsilico has developed Virtual Chimera, a platform that uses generative AI to create virtual models of hearts and blood vessels from anonymised medical scans. The company combines these models with physics-based simulations to test how medical devices may perform in patients of different ages, sexes, ethnic backgrounds, body sizes and health conditions.
The platform helps manufacturers make important decisions, such as choosing suitable device sizes, identifying patients who may face higher risks and planning clinical trials more effectively. It provides additional evidence alongside existing testing methods and aims to identify potential problems earlier, improve clinical studies and reduce the need for animal testing.
adsilico has already completed projects with manufacturers of heart valve and neurovascular devices. Its cardiac research is also scheduled to be presented at TCT, a conference focused on advances in structural heart treatments.
Sheena Macpherson, CEO and co-founder of adsilico, commented: “Patients miss out on the chance of a life-saving device, or face uncertainty about whether it will work for them, because people like them weren’t represented when it was designed and tested. We give medical device manufacturers early insight into the impact of anatomical diversity when it can still shape the design and help avoid costly mistakes or harm to patients.”
The new funding will help adsilico improve its virtual heart models and expand its technology into neurovascular devices. These include flow diverters, which are used to treat brain aneurysms. The company also plans to hire more staff and adapt its technology for use in other areas of healthcare.
