Northstar Ventures has invested £250,000 via the North East Spinout Inspire Fund in Gnosis Health, to support the development and launch of AI-powered digital healthcare assistant MAXine, designed to transform the management of Parkinson’s disease.
The investment forms part of a £570,000 seed round alongside £320,000 from SFC Capital, leveraging a £550,000 Innovate UK investor partnership grant, bringing total funding to £1.1m.
Gnosis Health is a spinout of the universities of Newcastle and Plymouth. Its MAXine healthcare assistant matches a patient-centric solution to an urgent clinical need.
Integrating data from wearables, patient reported outcomes and behavioural patterns, MAXine provides real time insights to patients and clinicians. It offers continuous, adaptive monitoring that enhances self-management and improves care team communication.
Affecting more than 153,000 people in the UK, those living with Parkinson’s typically receive only 30 minutes of clinician time per year. Symptoms fluctuate, requiring consistent monitoring. Existing approaches rely largely on questionnaires or infrequent clinical observation, resulting in fragmented care. MAXine bridges this gap, capturing symptom changes throughout the day and generating actionable insights.
The platform has demonstrated strong patient engagement in pilot studies, plus a potential 25% reduction in patient care costs. Unsurprisingly, there has already been keen early interest from international digital health funds.
The global AI healthcare market is expected to reach around $102 billion by 2028. Differentiating itself from broader consumer grade health platforms, MAXine is uniquely positioned to capitalise on this opportunity through its bespoke explainable AI models, federated-learning approach and focus on clinical specificity. MAXine can integrate with any commercial wearable device, an essential step in advance of its planned commercial release.
Founded by Prof. Edward Meinert and Jerrell Schivers, Gnosis Health brings together decades of experience in software engineering, AI model development and clinical research. The company’s IP is backed by more than £2 million in competitive grant funding. Gnosis is supported by leading Parkinson’s charities, including Parkinson’s UK and Cure Parkinson’s.
The funds will enable Gnosis to complete its North East NHS pilots, scale the engineering team, and prepare MAXine for its commercial debut.
The £22.5m North East Spinout Inspire Fund is backed by the universities of Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside, as well as North East Mayor Kim McGuinness and The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority (via the North East Fund). It has been set up to commercialise the research and innovation emerging from the North East’s five universities.
Dr Will Cousins, Investment Manager, Northstar Ventures, says: “Our universities are renowned for producing spinout companies that have global potential. Gnosis Health is tackling one of the most pressing challenges in chronic disease management. MAXine represents a step change in remote monitoring for Parkinson’s, combining clinical rigour with cutting edge AI to deliver meaningful value to patients and care teams alike. We’re proud to support a company with such clear potential to improve quality of life and reshape how chronic conditions are managed across the NHS and beyond.”
Professor Edward Meinert, Co-Founder and CEO, and Professor of Digital Health and Clinical Artificial Intelligence at Newcastle University, says: “Northstar Ventures played a pivotal role in the early development of Gnosis Health, providing both strategic advice and steadfast support at a stage when the company was still taking shape. That early partnership helped lay the foundations for what has now become a successful spinout and commercial launch. We would not be where we are today without Northstar’s belief in the vision from the outset.”
