A new approach examines how individual cells respond to drugs, aiming to identify risks earlier in development.
Updated
April 15, 2026 6:01 PM
Close up of a capsule blister pack. PHOTO: UNSPLASH
DeepCyte, a startup in the drug development space, is focusing on a long-standing problem: why drugs that appear safe in early testing still fail in clinical trials or are withdrawn later due to toxicity. DeepCyte has launched with US$1.5 million in seed funding to build tools that detect and explain the harmful effects of drugs at much earlier stages.
The startup’s approach focuses on how individual cells respond to a drug. Instead of analysing cells in bulk, it studies them one by one. This helps capture differences in how cells react, which are often missed in traditional testing methods.
Drug toxicity remains one of the main reasons for failure in drug development. Methods such as animal testing and bulk cell analysis do not always reflect how human cells behave. This gap has pushed the industry to look for more reliable and human-relevant ways to test drug safety.
DeepCyte combines cell-level data with artificial intelligence. Its platform, MetaCore, studies what is happening inside individual cells by capturing detailed molecular information. This data is used to build large datasets that can train AI models.
Additionally, the company has developed an AI system called DeeImmuno. It is designed to predict whether a drug could be toxic and identify the biological reasons behind it. In internal testing on 100 drugs, the system identified different types of toxicity and their underlying mechanisms with a reported accuracy of 94 percent.
The focus on explaining why a drug is toxic, not just whether it is, reflects a broader shift in the industry. Regulators such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency have been encouraging methods that rely more on human cell data and clearer biological evidence. The seed funding will be used to develop and scale these tools. The company aims to help drug developers make earlier decisions, which could reduce costly failures in later stages. Whether tools like this become widely used will depend on how they perform in real-world settings. For now, DeepCyte’s approach highlights a growing effort to make drug testing more precise by focusing on how drugs affect cells at the most detailed level.
Keep Reading
A new bet on early heart failure detection and why women’s health is at the center.
Updated
January 8, 2026 6:28 PM
A doctor holding an artificial heart model. PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK
Heart disease does not always announce itself clearly, especially in women. Many of the symptoms are ordinary, including fatigue, shortness of breath and swelling. These signs are frequently dismissed or explained away. As a result, many women are diagnosed late, when treatment options are narrower and outcomes are worse. That diagnostic gap is the context behind a recent investment involving Ultromics and the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Venture Fund.
Ultromics is a health technology company that uses artificial intelligence to help doctors spot early signs of heart failure from routine heart scans. It has received a strategic investment from the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women Venture Fund.
The focus of the investment is a long-standing blind spot in cardiac care. Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction, or HFpEF, affects millions of people worldwide, with women disproportionately impacted. It is one of the most common forms of heart failure, yet also one of the hardest to diagnose. Studies even show women are twice as likely as men to develop the condition and around 64% of cases go undiagnosed in routine clinical practice.
Ultromics works with a tool most patients already experience during heart care: the echocardiogram. There is no new scan and no added burden for patients. Its software analyzes standard heart ultrasound images and looks for subtle patterns that point to early heart failure. The goal is clarity. Give clinicians better signals earlier, before the disease advances.
“Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction is one of the most complex and overlooked diseases in cardiology. For too long, clinicians have been expected to diagnose it using tools that weren't built to detect it and as a result, many patients are identified too late,” said Ross Upton, PhD, CEO and Founder of Ultromics. “By augmenting physicians' decision making with EchoGo, we can help them recognize disease at an earlier stage and treat it more effectively.”
The stakes are high. Research suggests women are twice as likely as men to develop the condition and that a majority of cases are missed in routine clinical practice. That delay matters. New therapies can reduce hospitalizations and improve survival, but only if patients are diagnosed in time.
This is why early detection has become a priority for mission-driven investors. “Closing the diagnostic gap by recognizing disease before irreversible damage occurs is critical to improving health for women—and everyone,” said Tracy Warren, Senior Managing Director, Go Red for Women Venture Fund. “We are gratified to see technologies, such as this one, that are accepted by leading institutions as advances in the field of cardiovascular diagnostics. That's the kind of progress our fund was created to accelerate.”
Ultromics’ platform is already cleared by regulators for clinical use and is being deployed in hospitals across the US and UK. The company says its technology has analyzed hundreds of thousands of heart scans, helping clinicians reach clearer conclusions when traditional methods fall short.
Taken together, the investment reflects a broader shift in healthcare. Attention is shifting earlier—toward detection instead of reaction. Toward tools that fit into existing care rather than complicate it. In this case, the funding is not about introducing something new into the system. It is about seeing what has long been missed—and doing so in time.