Glasgow-based Talking Medicines has closed a fresh £1.5 million investment round to support expansion plans in its target North American market.

The company, which is developing artificial intelligence (AI) for use by pharmaceutical firms, has welcomed Boston-based life sciences investor Mark Bamforth of Thairm Bio as its newest investor. He joins existing backers Tern, SIS Ventures, and Scottish Enterprise in this latest funding round.

Set up in 2013 by chief executive Jo Halliday along with co-founders Elizabeth Fairley and Scott Crae, Talking Medicines has developed a data platform that allows pharmaceutical companies to gather information from social media on patients’ experiences of using medications. This “social listening” platform, PatientMetRx, is driven by AI models that use machine learning and natural language processing to provide science-based insights.

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By structuring and translating the patient’s voice into a “patient confidence score”, Talking Medicines says it can help drive more effective marketing by pharmaceutical firms and ultimately deliver better patient outcomes.

The company has doubled its headcount during the past year to 35 members of staff and is now in the process of recruiting a commercial team in the US that will be based out of its new office in New Jersey. Ms Halliday said 2022 “promises to be a big year” for the business.

“Having scaled up our operations and formally launched our PatientMetRx technology platform, we’ve now got our sights set on expanding in the US pharma market, providing brand teams and agencies with a new way of understanding what patients are really saying and feeling about their medicines,” she said.

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“The pharmaceutical industry will go through seismic change this year and our actionable patient insights will be transformational for the industry. Our new office in New Jersey provides the ideal base for us to build relationships with customers, acquire new leads and drive revenue growth.”

This latest investment brings the total raised by Talking Medicines to £4m, following on from four previous investment rounds.