The average time for a treatment to get to market is ten years and costs more than $1 billion. For diagnostics, it's a similarly challenging battle of time and money. In this time, patients are left waiting for improved treatments and diagnostics, which can be a matter of life and death.

The pharmaceutical and biotech industry, burdened by immense financial risks, grapples with a paradox: the necessity of massive amounts of data and the fact that they have massive amounts of data, but not always the right data. The missing link many companies need is both longitudinal and multi-modal data for distinct patient populations.

To specifically fight this issue, a decade ago, I embarked on a journey with Intermountain Health, bringing together my passion for medicine and the intricate world of genomics.

During this time, my fascination with the genome deepened after helping cancer patients find novel therapeutic targets. I knew I wanted to find a team to be able to apply precision medicine to even larger populations. This mission became a driving force in my professional path, and today, this mission inspires us at Culmination Bio.

I am humbled to announce Culmination Bio’s $10 million investment from Amgen Ventures and Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, marking a huge milestone in our commitment to assisting companies in making informed, data-driven research decisions.

This company has become such a meaningful project to me, as we’re shaped by the efforts of a team of scientists deeply committed to advancing healthcare research. The significance of this funding extends beyond the number. It allows us to touch the heart of a critical issue in healthcare: the time and cost it takes to bring life-changing drugs to those who desperately need them.

The heart of our work is anchored in eliminating this data struggle that hinders progress. Our platform, which has exclusive access to 40 years of patient data from Intermountain Health, helps unlock discoveries that were once buried beneath complex, unstructured data layers. By combining access to both biospecimen and clinical data, like patient journeys outlined in EHRs, we are the one-stop-shop when it comes to research.

Culmination Bio’s platform has already contributed to published research, in partnership with a few top 10 pharma companies, on the discoveries of the eight genes that cause vertigo, the six genes that cause migraine, and the 93 genes that cause blood clotting disorders.

Our continuously growing library, now housing over five million de-identified patient samples and clinical data spanning four decades, enables us to swiftly identify unique patient cohorts for patient recruitment or retrospective research. This capability accelerates critical research, leading to discoveries that have the potential to rewrite the narrative of drug development.

This financing reinforces our commitment to reshaping the landscape of healthcare and will enable us to expand our commercial partnerships. The funding not only supports our current initiatives but also ensures that we remain a trailblazer in the transformative era of biopharmaceutical innovation.

I’d like to thank our investors, partners, and the entire Culmination Bio team for making this a reality.