Phase Advance and QNova Capital Enter Strategic Alliance, Using Predictive AI To Select High-Potential Drug Candidates

The predictive AI modeling startup and the new investment fund of QNova Life Sciences are joining forces to select preclinical drug candidates with AI-powered insights. 

Phase Advance, a pharma modeling company predicting future performance of newly discovered drugs, is combining their expertise with QNova Capital, a venture fund focused on early stage biotech, to identify the therapies that will become blockbuster drugs. The VC, formed by veteran clinical research organization QNova LifeSciences (formerly CSSi Lifesciences), aims to unite their expertise in identifying winning therapies with Phase Advance’s modeling capabilities, which predicts clinical trial endpoints with a proven 99.94% accuracy rate. 

The pharma industry and its investment backers play long odds in selecting the new drugs that deserve further research dollars: only about four percent of newly discovered drugs will reach FDA approval, and venture capitalists often expect one out of ten investments to cover the losses of the other nine. QNova’s thirty-year history of over 500 FDA submissions outperforms most. Phase Advance, a startup led by physician scientist Dr. Tawanda Gumbo, uses novel mathematical modeling of lifetime disease progression to predict drug performance as far ahead as Phase 3 clinical trials. Its technology is the only to show their detailed predictions were, in time, matched with >99% accuracy in subsequent human trials. Together, the firms plan to collaborate on examining potential therapeutics and funneling resources towards drugs that truly help patients. 

“I’ve spent my career navigating some of the most complex regulatory environments in biotech,” said Jim Sergi, President of QNova Life Sciences and partner in QNova Capital “What makes Phase Advance so exciting is how it builds on that foundation — giving us predictive clarity and confidence that go far beyond what experience alone can deliver.”

 “Phase Advance could not be prouder to gain a partner with the experience and outside-the-box mindset to match our own. Together, we will predict and then make the blockbusters drugs of tomorrow,” says Dr. Tawanda Gumbo, CEO and cofounder of Phase Advance. 

“Our investment process already leverages decades of scientific and regulatory insight to de-risk early-stage opportunities,” said John Stanton, Managing Partner of QNova Capital. “Phase Advance will extend that advantage, delivering a level of regulatory certainty and foresight that’s never before been achievable in early-stage investing.”

Phase Advance’s predictive tools set a high benchmark of proven accuracy in the field of new approach methodologies, or NAMs. With FDA incentivizing the pharma industry to utilize NAMs in place of animal models, which are shown to poorly match human clinical responses, this alliance sets QNova and Phase Advance as category leaders. 

About Phase Advance 

Phase Advance is a Dallas, Texas-based company founded after several years developing and testing predictive models of lifetime disease progression. They serve pharma, CROs, venture capital, and AI drug discovery companies by predicting the individual-patient level clinical response rates, best biomarkers, optimal doses, and how well drugs will perform versus other candidate drugs, before the preclinical stage.