Monument Therapeutics funding news – Neuroscience Startup Monument Therapeutics Raises £850K in Funding

Barnett, the company's founder, is a psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist. In 2021, she was Chief Scientist at Cambridge Cognition, a company that develops software to measure brain function.

The software works like a game but is used by pharmaceutical companies to test how well drugs improve brain functions, such as memory in Alzheimer's or impulse control in ADHD.

Barnett recalled “While at Cambridge Cognition, I worked on numerous drug trials and saw many promising drugs fail. About 95 per cent of neuroscience drugs don’t make it through clinical development. This is often because psychiatric diagnoses are broad and heterogeneous—people with the same diagnosis may have different underlying brain dysfunctions.”

Monument Therapeutics began as a research project at Cambridge Cognition, aiming to classify patients based on measurable brain function instead of broad diagnoses. This approach helps create more specific patient groups that will respond better to targeted treatments.

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In psychiatric research, unlike cancer, which uses genetic markers to guide treatments, neuroscience doesn’t have direct access to the brain. In psychiatry, conditions are diagnosed based on symptoms, like equating low mood with depression, even though the causes may differ. Barnett believes the field needs to focus on precision medicine by identifying brain function problems rather than just symptoms.

MT1988 is designed to be used along with current antipsychotic drugs, providing an additional treatment option. The funding led by ACF Investors, along with Wren Capital, o2h Ventures, and angel investors, will help move the drug into further clinical trials, with Phase 1 results expected by Q2 2025.

Tim Mills, Managing Partner at ACF Investors, said: “Monument Therapeutics is tackling one of the most elusive areas of neuroscience drug development with an innovative, precision-based approach. CIAS is an area of huge unmet need and we believe that MT1988 has the potential to make a real impact on a range of conditions. We look forward to supporting Jenny and the team as they push the boundaries of neuroscience and work towards a much-needed solution for patients worldwide.”

According to Sunil Shah, CEO of o2h Ventures, the cognitive impairment associated with schizophrenia is an area of significant unmet medical need. "Jenny Barnett has been a fantastic CEO leading the charge and finding innovative sources of funding for the programme.”

About Monument Therapeutics

Monument Tx is an independent biotechnology company based in the UK, spun out from Cambridge Cognition in 2021.

The company develops treatments for serious brain and nervous system diseases. Using precision medicine, Monument Tx applies unique digital biomarkers to better understand and group patients with similar brain conditions, so they can be matched with the right treatments.