IMS Solutions raises £1.1m led by Midlands Mindforge with SFC Capital
This article covers IMS Solutions, a healthtech startup, which has raised £1.1m in a seed funding round to accelerate regulatory certification and commercial rollout of its ACCelerate diagnostic for adrenal tumours. The funding, alongside a separate £2.1m National Institute for Health and Care Research award to Imperial College London, will support product development and clinical validation of ACCelerate and a blood-based stratification test for polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, affecting patients and NHS diagnostic pathways.
IMS Solutions, a healthtech startup, has raised £1.1m in a seed funding round to accelerate regulatory certification and commercial rollout of its ACCelerate diagnostic for adrenal tumours, alongside work on a blood-based stratification test for polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome (PMOS). The raise is matched by a separate £2.1m National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) award to Imperial College London that will support product development and clinical validation.
Why it matters
Disorders of steroid hormone metabolism can present with broad, non-specific symptoms that are hard and slow to diagnose. Faster, more accurate diagnostics could reduce unnecessary surgery, speed appropriate treatment and lower costs for patients and the NHS. ACCelerate aims to distinguish benign from malignant adrenal tumours more reliably than current imaging alone, addressing a clear clinical decision point where better tests can change patient pathways.
Inside the product
ACCelerate is a urine test built around a panel of steroid biomarkers and a machine learning algorithm. The algorithm was trained on retrospective data and prospectively validated in a multi-centre study of more than 2,000 patients across 11 countries. According to IMS Solutions, the study showed the test can be up to four times more accurate than scans alone at identifying adrenocortical carcinoma.
The company says the test is designed to run in existing NHS laboratories without requiring new machines, and the new funds are intended to optimise performance and secure regulatory certification. Separate work is under way on what IMS describes as the first stratification test for polyendocrine metabolic ovarian syndrome, formerly known as polycystic ovary syndrome. That blood test combines biomarker measurement with a machine learning classifier to identify PMOS subgroups with different metabolic risks; a clinical validation study is in progress.
IMS Solutions is a joint spin-out from the University of Birmingham and Imperial College London. The underlying platform was initially developed at Birmingham by Professor Wiebke Arlt, who is now Chief Scientific Officer at IMS Solutions and holds senior research and clinical roles at Imperial.
Who are the investors?
The seed round was led by Midlands Mindforge and included participation from SFC Capital, the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), NG Bio, the British Business Bank and private investors.
In the announcement, Priya Reddy, Investor at Midlands Mindforge, said:
Women’s health conditions such as PMOS have historically been significantly underfunded and underserved, despite affecting millions of women globally. IMS has the potential to change that by enabling faster, more accurate route to diagnosis and, ultimately, better patient outcomes. We are incredibly excited to be leading this investment and supporting the IMS team as they bring this important technology to market.
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Founder perspective
IMS Solutions retains exclusive rights to background patents and know-how from its university founders. Professor Wiebke Arlt, who led the original academic work and now serves as Chief Scientific Officer, highlights the scale of clinical validation and the next steps for the company.
In the announcement, Wiebke Arlt, Chief Scientific Officer at IMS Solutions, said:
We validated the test through the largest ever adrenal cancer study, which involved over 2,000 patients from 11 countries, and this proved the test’s accuracy. The funding means we can now optimise the test and certify to current regulatory standards. In addition, we intend to show that it is also good value for money and can be reliably performed in existing NHS laboratories, without new machines or additional costs. We now know that PMOS is not a single disorder but that there are different PMOS subgroups, and some more than others increase the risk of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. The test we are developing will be able to discern which category patients are in, and identify health risks for an individual patient, enabling earlier and improved treatment options.
Professor Arlt also holds leadership positions at Imperial’s MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences and is President of the European Society of Endocrinology, signalling both scientific continuity and clinical credibility for the spin-out.
The bigger picture
The funding package — combining private seed capital with a substantial NIHR development award — is a familiar model for UK healthtech ventures transitioning university research into regulated diagnostic tools. If ACCelerate meets regulatory and economic benchmarks, it could shift diagnostic pathways for adrenal disease and create a template for bringing biomarker-plus-algorithm tests into routine NHS use. The PMOS work also touches on an underfunded area of women’s health where stratified diagnostics could personalise care and target prevention.
The deal adds to momentum among UK healthtech investors backing diagnostic startups that pair molecular biomarkers with machine learning, and underscores the continuing role of public research funding in de-risking clinical innovation for commercialisation across the UK and Europe.
They've invested in IMS Solutions
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