Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation’s IBD Ventures Invests in Mobius Care to Advance AI-Powered Precision Medicine for IBD 

Contact:
Rachel Peifer 
[email protected]

February 14, 2025, New York, NY – The Crohn's & Colitis Foundation has invested in Mobius Care, a Cleveland Clinic-founded company, through its IBD Ventures program. Mobius Care is developing an innovative AI-based pathology tool that will use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict patients' responses to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) therapies using digital images of gut tissue samples, offering a new approach to precision medicine for IBD patients.  

This groundbreaking technology tool analyzes microvilli in intestinal tissue samples obtained from IBD patients during colonoscopies. Preliminary evidence suggests that these measurements can predict efficacy for certain biological drugs, potentially stratifying IBD patients based on their likelihood of responding to specific treatments. 

The investment will enable Mobius Care to expand their dataset of measurements, including samples from the Foundation's IBD Plexus, advancing the technology toward use as a Laboratory Developed Test (LDT) and eventual FDA approval. This digital pathology test uses existing tissue samples and has the potential to become a valuable tool for clinicians to personalize treatment plans for IBD patients. 

The IBD Ventures-funded study will initially use biopsy samples from Crohn's disease patients available at the Foundation's IBD Plexus biorepository to further validate the potential of Mobius Care's AI-based biomarker in predicting response to anti-inflammatory biologic treatments. This innovative digital pathology biomarker is the first of its kind and could provide clinicians with a new tool to personalize treatment plans for IBD patients. 

 "IBD Ventures is excited to support Mobius Care, which is pioneering transformative technology that addresses critical unmet needs of IBD patients," said Andrés Hurtado-Lorenzo, PhD, Senior Vice President of Translational Research and IBD Ventures at the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation. "Currently, the patient journey in IBD lacks a systematic approach. Patients often cycle through various treatments - from steroids to different biologics and small molecules - without a clear way to predict which will be most effective. This digital pathology test has the potential to bring precision medicine to IBD care." 

“The Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation has been a valuable partner, and we greatly appreciate their early support of our efforts,” said Thaddeus Stappenbeck, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Inflammation and Immunity at Cleveland Clinic and founder of Mobius Care. “The Foundation recognizes the complexity of treating IBD, which affects 1 in 100 Americans. While precision medicine has made strides in other areas, progress in IBD has remained limited, with current therapies showing response rates as low as 50%. This uncertainty in treatment effectiveness highlights a pressing unmet need within the field. We look forward to building on our collaboration with The Foundation as Mobius works to advance precision diagnostics and develop innovative therapies that can transform the way IBD is treated and significantly improve patient outcomes.”   

Cristina Larkin, CEO of Mobius Care, stated, “Our focus has been on providing better solutions for patients suffering from IBD. Precision IBD has been a goal for both patients and healthcare providers, and we are excited about developing AI-supported solutions to guide the clinical selection of IBD therapeutics. We believe Mobius Care is prepared to be the first to offer a true precision medicine approach to IBD, and we are thrilled about our biomarkers and the expanding pipeline of therapeutics we are creating."  

Aiming to accelerate the development of novel products, IBD Ventures directly invests in product-oriented research and development with the potential to improve remission rates and quality of life for patients with IBD, which includes Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. The Foundation is highly selective in its funding decisions, reflecting its commitment to investing in the most promising and innovative product modalities that clearly meet critical unmet patient needs, including but not restricted to novel therapeutics for IBD. 

Since 2017, IBD Ventures has invested in 27 projects from companies and academic institutions to advance new product opportunities. The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation launched IBD Ventures to accelerate the discovery and development of research-based products with the potential to address the unmet needs of IBD patients. As a venture philanthropy program, IBD Ventures aims to advance products through the developmental pathway toward patient care by investing in novel products. The program funds, advises, and provides resources to for-profit companies worldwide, academic institutions, and other organizations seeking to develop therapies, diagnostics, devices and digital health solutions that can improve remission rates and quality of life for patients with IBD.  

About the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation 

The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation is the leading nonprofit organization focused on both research and patient support for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), with the mission of curing Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis and improving the quality of life for the millions of Americans living with IBD. The Foundation’s work is dramatically accelerating the research process, while also providing extensive educational and support resources for patients and their families, medical professionals, and the public. For more information, visit crohnscolitisfoundation.org, call 888-694-8872, or email [email protected].