Magdeburg/ Zurich — Conver­gence Part­ners parti­ci­pa­tes in a signi­fi­cantly over­sub­scri­bed Pre-Series A finan­cing round for digi­tal health company neotiv GmbH. The total volume is EUR 10 million. Co-inves­tors in this round include Capri­corn Part­ners, High-Tech Grün­der­fonds, bmp Ventures, RSJ Fonds, Sana Future GmbH and Vega Venture. The Magde­burg-based startup has deve­lo­ped an app that can be used to diagnose demen­tia dise­a­ses at an early stage.

Detect Alzheimer’s dise­ase earlier

With the CE-marked medi­cal device neotiv­Care®, neotiv offers digi­tal memory tests for people with self-percei­ved memory problems and supports the diagno­sis of mild cogni­tive impair­ment (MCI). Dr. Chris Rehse, CEO and neotiv co-foun­der explains: “The number of pati­ents, physi­ci­ans and health insu­r­ers who are relia­bly supported in the diagno­sis of ‘mild cogni­tive impair­ment (MCI)’ through the use of our revo­lu­tio­nary medi­cal product neotiv­Care® is growing rapidly. Only compre­hen­sive care with relia­ble diagno­ses will set the course for inno­va­tive thera­pies for early Alzheimer’s dise­ase, which is often unde­tec­ted, and can thus help many people affec­ted.”

Signi­fi­cantly increase treat­ment chances

The company was foun­ded five years ago. Using the unique neotiv­Care® app, pati­ents test the memory func­tions of speci­fic brain regi­ons asso­cia­ted with the early deve­lo­p­men­tal stages of demen­tia over an exten­ded period of time. Thus, neotiv­Care® can relia­bly detect the effects of Alzheimer’s patho­logy before symptoms are visi­ble. The earlier a diagno­sis is made, the faster and more effec­tive treat­ment can be initia­ted. “The tech­no­lo­gi­cal foun­da­tion we have crea­ted with neotiv­Care® allows all physi­ci­ans to relia­bly inves­ti­gate suspec­ted cases of MCI against a back­drop of rising preva­len­ces. This puts us in a unique posi­tion to rapidly deli­ver dise­ase-modi­fy­ing drugs to pati­ents,” says Prof. Emrah Düzel, Chief Medi­cal Offi­cer and co-foun­der, describ­ing neotiv’s contri­bu­tion to the stan­dard care of the future.

Coope­ra­tion with health insu­rance companies

Neotiv has alre­ady agreed coope­ra­ti­ons with health insu­r­ers, and further talks are curr­ently under­way. Accor­ding to an esti­mate by the German Alzhei­mer Society, 1.8 million people have Alzheimer’s dise­ase. Last year alone, 440,000 people were added to the work­force in Germany. Accor­ding to the World Alzhei­mer Report of 2021, only 40% of pati­ents receive a diagno­sis. “The deve­lo­p­ment of powerful drugs to treat Alzheimer’s is on the verge of a breakth­rough follo­wing recent posi­tive news from ongo­ing clini­cal trials. But all of these thera­peu­tics rely on detec­ting the dise­ase early. This is where neotiv’s revo­lu­tio­nary diagno­stics make a crucial contri­bu­tion to comba­ting the wide­spread dise­ase of the 21st century,” explains Daniel Koppel­kamm, Mana­ging Part­ner of Conver­gence Partners.

About neotiv GmbH

neotiv GmbH is a spin-off of the OVGU Magde­burg in close coope­ra­tion with the German Center for Neuro­de­ge­nera­tive Dise­a­ses — DZNE. neotiv GmbH was foun­ded in 2014 and is head­quar­te­red in Magde­burg with an addi­tio­nal office in Berlin. The goal of the young company is to trans­late the latest findings in neuro­sci­ence into products that can be used in science and in the health­care system. The focus here is on mobile apps for smart­phones and tablets that enable test­ing of important memory func­tions. Further, health system bene­fits are a core appli­ca­tion area. The medi­cal device neotiv­Care supports pati­ents in the medi­cal assess­ment of self-percei­ved memory problems. Tests can be perfor­med in the home envi­ron­ment, which are later evalua­ted with the doctor and help to iden­tify a possi­ble dise­ase, such as Alzheimer’s, at an early stage. In order to be able to inte­grate such appli­ca­ti­ons into the health­care system in a scien­ti­fi­cally valid and sustainable way, neotiv actively coope­ra­tes with various inter­na­tio­nal studies and important insti­tu­ti­ons of the health­care system. https://neotiv.com/en

About Conver­gence Part­ners AG
Conver­gence Part­ners AG (“Conver­gence”) is a Swiss Health­Tech venture capi­tal firm actively support­ing the inter­na­tio­na­liza­tion of its port­fo­lio compa­nies in the four largest health­care markets USA, China, India and Germany. Conver­gence has offices in Switz­er­land, Germany, Spain and Hong Kong and was foun­ded in 2018 by expe­ri­en­ced health­care indus­try play­ers and venture capi­ta­lists with the goal of connec­ting EU Health­Tech inno­va­tions with large inter­na­tio­nal scale-up and exit poten­tial. Conver­gence focu­ses on later-stage invest­ments in digi­tal health, medi­cal devices and diagno­stics. Current key invest­ment areas include Mental Health, Women’s Health and Compu­ta­tio­nal Biology. Conver­gence is the venture capi­tal part­ner of “Medi­cal Valley” in Nurem­berg-Erlan­gen, Germany’s “Digi­tal Health Center of Excel­lence”. https://www.convergence-partners.ch/home .