The boom in healthcare investments and exits continued in the first half of 2015, driven by the large appetite of non-VC crossover investors for biopharma and device companies preparing for an IPO. This signals that 2015 will mark the third consecutive year of strong activity for the healthcare sector, according to the mid-year update of Silicon Valley Bank’s Trends in Healthcare Investments and Exits.
In the five years since it was founded, Mountain View, CA-based Scanadu has been blessed with a groundswell of support from some pretty diverse groups—ordinary folks, elite investors, Web innovators, and even Trekkies.
In the biggest deal ever for an Israeli medical device company – and one of the biggest in any industry in Israel – Massachusetts-based HeartWare International is acquiring Israeli biotech start-up Valtech Cardio.
According to the terms of the agreement, Valtech shareholders will receive some six million shares of HeartWare stock in incremental stages over the next year, depending on milestones. Between the stock transfers and cash payments that accompany several of the milestones, the deal is worth more than $900 million, and could reach as much as a billion dollars.
Intellivisit, the Milwaukee-area virtual health startup that seeks to be the “digital front door” for sick patients wanting to report their symptoms, has signed three Midwestern customers, all of whom will start using the software in October, said founder and CEO Jay Mason.
The company, which changed its name from Elli Health in April, was founded in 2013 and has thus far raised over $2.1 million in seed funding, according to SEC filings.
Doctors currently rely on flat images from CT and MRI scans for pre-op information about patient’s organs. Now, however, health tech startup EchoPixel is planning to use the information garnered from current medical imaging technology to produce 3D virtual reality organs, which doctors can explore and inspect before beginning surgery.
EchoPixel uses the images which are already being gathered during medical imaging processes to create 3D-rendered body parts. These floating masses can then be examined via a VR platform called zSpace. Doctors can rotate and dissect the images of organs, including the brain and the heart, using a stylus. They can even examine a colon via a simulated fly-through.
Safety evaluation is a critical part of drug and cosmetic development. But in recent years there is a growing understanding that animal experiments fail to predict the human response, necessitating the development of alternative models to predict drug toxicity and reactions.
In addition, the recent tightening of European regulations preventing the cosmetic industry from using animals in research and development, blocks companies like L’Oréal and Estée Lauder from developing new products, bringing massive investment into this field.
New drugs for fibrosis, an internal, often deadly type of scarring, have become the centerpiece of a number of biotech deals over the past few years. The latest just crossed the wires this morning, as Bristol-Myers Squibb has just nabbed an option to buy Promedior, of Lexington, MA.
A blood test that could quickly detect a brain injury and measure the damage it has done could help doctors provide better care for the millions of people suffering from such injuries, potentially improving their chances of avoiding long-term disabilities.
The trick is identifying proteins that appear in the blood in elevated amounts only after a brain injury and then developing tests that can both detect those markers and determine medically relevant information from them. Two companies, Quanterix and Banyan Biomarkers, have identified promising biomarkers and are devising and evaluating diagnostic tests.
Science and technology have helped women and couples take control of their reproductive health and make important life decisions. We used CB Insights data to identify 13 funded private companies in the increasingly important category. The startups range from biotechnology companies, to startups marketing fertility tracking instruments, and big data applications analyzing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) probabilities. Big-name investors like Andreessen Hororowitz and Founders Fund have financed companies in this space. They both participated in a $17M Series B financing in Max Levchin’s big data startup Glow.
The table below lists the startups, what they do, and select investors.
For patients who have undergone an operation, it’s hard to imagine a greater post-surgical shock than a leak around their supposedly secure staple or other closure. Yet it happens 15% to 19% of the time in bariatric and colorectal procedures, according to Israeli life sciences start-up LifeBond. To prevent that leakage, the company has developed a unique gelatin-based surgical sealant, guaranteed not to leak.
Already in advanced stages of development, Caesarea-based LifeBond announced this week that it had secured $27 million in a Series D investment. Among the investors: Pitango Venture Capital, Adams Street Partners, and Sino Biopharmaceutical Ltd.
