NovaUCD spinout Beyondbmi has raised €525,000 start-up funding to launch its proprietary weight loss platform.
Beyondbmi, led by Dr Harriet Treacy, promises people living with excess body fat access to doctor-prescribed weight loss medication, nutritional therapy and one-to-one accountability coaching.
The business model centres on a monthly subscription of €150, with a 50% discount introductory offer for the first 100 users,
The subscription cost does not include recommended medications such as GLP-1s (glucagon-like peptide-1s), which can cost up to €200 per month.
Operating company Privamed Ltd was incorporated in June 2022 by Treacy and product designer Peter Lumley, with support from obesity scientists and clinicians Prof Alex Miras, Prof Carel Le Roux and Dr Werd Al-Najim.
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According to Treacy: “As a practising doctor, I have treated hundreds of patients who are experiencing health conditions they are not aware are a direct result of excess body fat.
“Conditions such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, anxiety and depression and increasingly, female health challenges like PCOS and infertility. I have had few medically-proven solutions I can point them towards to manage weight issues.
“This led me to spend time with global obesity experts to understand how we could design a solution which was based on the science of obesity.”
Ireland launched Europe's first obesity guidelines in October 2022. Public health authorities estimate that c.60% of Ireland’s population is overweight or obese.
Director Peter Lumley added: “We have designed bespoke technology, which includes both a client and clinician facing portal, to meet the specific needs of clients living with obesity and clinicians practising obesity medicine.
“This allows us to deliver more coordinated, obesity-specific multidisciplinary care which is difficult to achieve using legacy, generalist electronic health records systems.”
Privamed was advised on the funding round by CKS Finance, with founder CKS founder Conor Sheahan investing. The venture’s other backers include Ergo’s John Purdy, Grant Thornton executive Paddy Dillon, and Declan MacGee.
Treacy said Beyondbmi’s mission is to provide a scientifically-based alternative to the approach of ‘eat less, move more’.
“For too long, the symptom of hunger associated with excess fat accumulation has been treated as an issue of willpower which causes untold harm to people who often internalise the failure of the treatment as a personal or moral failure,” she explained.
“Thankfully, we now have more effective solutions in the form of new medical drug treatments, combined with nutritional therapy and behavioural support which targets the underlying biology responsible for the feeling of hunger.
“On average, this results in 15% weight loss over little more than a year, as demonstrated in the STEP trials.”
The Beyondbmi site references providing itemised invoices which the customer can send to their health insurer. No information is provided on which insurers cover obesity treatments.
Photo (l-r): Prof. Alex Miras, Dr Harriet Treacy, Prof. Carel le Roux, and Dr Werd Al-Najim
