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Arkhn raises EUR4m to lead healthcare institutions towards efficient data management

Arkhn, a specialist in healthcare data interoperability, has finalised a first round of financing of EUR4 million. This financing round was jointly led by Kurma Partners and Newfund, through their respective funds Kurma Diagnostics II and Newfund II, with the support of the European Commission and the public bank Bpifrance. 

Founded in August 2019, Arkhn tackles the issue of accessing healthcare data. It has become critical for care facilities and the entire healthcare ecosystem: medical teams, public and private researchers, patients, medical startups and softwares. This imperative need for data sovereignty has been highlighted by the coronavirus crisis and by several government measures around the world. In France, this ambition is reflected by the implementation of “My health 2022” and the allocation of EUR1.4 billion – the “Ségur de la Santé” program – for a simple and secure health data sharing. 

Today, health care facilities use numerous softwares in order to follow patients’ hospitalisation, analyse medical observations or assist practitioners during their interventions. Unfortunately, there is poor communication between these softwares and healthcare institutions do not have control over data management. The lack of interoperability and data management infrastructure generate huge costs and time-consuming work – data is often collected by hand – for all the players in the healthcare ecosystem. 

To solve this problem, Arkhn harmonises all this data within a data architecture solution based on data warehouse and Artificial Intelligence technologies. It uses the open-sourced and free interoperability standard FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), which is now a worldwide authority. This “gold standard” is used to standardise data produced by medical software, like patient information, medical observations, prescribed treatments, medical devices, or financial and administrative information. 

Access to this data facilitates medical research in institutions like large-scale analyses, creation of patient cohorts, etc. It supports care teams with a more precise monitoring of patient pathways, rapid search for medical information, and encourages innovation and the implementation of multi-center projects. Finally, the data architecture deployed by Arkhn enables a drastic reduction in costs and time required to deploy new softwares. 

Benjamin Belot, Managing Partner of Kurma Partners, explains: “As a fund specialising in digital health, we have long identified the challenge of accessing hospital data and its negative impact on innovation. We were impressed by the team’s expertise and technological leadership in Europe. The company is developing the best tools at the best time and is already collaborating with key players to address this critical challenge.” 

Anne-Sophie Nedellec, Partner of Newfund, adds: “Arkhn’s strength lies in its team of experts and its hand-in-hand support with medical and IT teams. The fact that it is 100 per cent aligned with the institutions’ vision of healthcare data gives it a head start. Combined with a crisis that has accelerated awareness of the importance of data accessibility, the company can become the European leader in hospital data infrastructure.” 

Corneliu Malciu, Emeric Lemaire and Theo Ryffel, Co-founders of Arkhn, conclude: “We are convinced that healthcare institutions are best qualified to administer and value healthcare data. By working hand in hand with medical and IT teams, we develop trust-based relationships with the entire ecosystem. Our commitment to bringing energies together around this major challenge and our open-source approach are part of our DNA. Newfund and Kurma support us in this committed approach and will be a great asset to support our growth in France but also throughout Europe.” 

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