By the end of next year, Harpoon Medical’s minimally invasive surgical tool could be in operating rooms across Europe.
Harpoon still is testing the technology, but believes its device could revolutionize mitral valve repair, a hours-long surgery that requires splitting the breastbone and stopping the heart. Harpoon’s tool can finish the job in a hour and a half through a small incision.
Washington-area companies raised nearly $300 million in venture capital funding during the third quarter, putting the region on track to reach $1 billion in investments by the end of the year, according to recently released data from the National Venture Capital Association.
In all, 49 local companies raised $299.5 million during the third quarter, a 47 percent increase from the $204 million the region’s firms secured during the same period last year, according to PitchBook, a research company that provided the data for the association’s report.
BioFactura, Inc. was granted patent rights by China’s State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) protecting the core technologies of its proprietary StableFast™ Biomanufacturing Platform. SIPO allowed 17 claims broadly covering composition of matter and methods. StableFast™ is BioFactura’s proprietary NS0-based system to rapidly generate stable cell lines that have the potential to lower cost, produce follow-on biologics and are single-use technology compatible. The Company is developing high-value biosimilars both internally and collaboratively.
For a while, Illumina—the 800-pound gorilla of genomics—could do no wrong. The DNA-sequencing company’s market cap more than quadrupled from 2012, to peak at a whopping $34 billion, fueled in part by the growing hype around the potential of genomics to transform how we prevent, diagnose, and treat disease, as well as facilitate medical research discoveries.
Investigators at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine’s Brain Injury Outcomes program and the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research have been awarded a seven-year, $25 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) to form, along with Tufts University School of Medicine, one of three Trial Innovation Centers.
Madison, Wisconsin-based Propeller Health has closed a $21.5 million Series C financing round, with new investors 3M Ventures, S.R. One, Limited and Hikma Ventures, plus existing investors Safeguard Scientifics and Social Capital. The funding will be used to further Propeller’s digitally-guided therapy platform.
Propeller’s aim is to simplify management of chronic respiratory diseases like asthma and COPD through sensors that attached to inhalers and sync to a companion app. The digitally-guided therapy platform is able to integrate with multiple sources, including connected medications, and uses machine learning to design a personalized therapy plan for each user.
Ever lose something and go crazy trying to find it, only to discover it was right in front of you all along?
A few days ago I attended back-to-back events. The first was a late afternoon party celebrating the 10th anniversary of a client, Printfresh Studio. Most of the women reading this have one of their designs in their closet. I met another attendee who suggested we get together to discuss mutual opportunities to refer our clients. We traded business cards.
With the visionary language of large federal initiatives like the “Cancer Moonshot” or provocative branding such as “NIH…Turning Discovery into Health®” and the National Institute of Health website further touting “revolutionary ideas often come from unexpected directions,” one might assume an equally ambitious approach is being taken to ensure federal life sciences research is going toward research with the most promise for positive impact and scientific advancement. One of the calls of Vice President Joe Biden’s recent Cancer Moonshot report was urging not to accept a “business as usual” approach. A recent report underscores why that may be a problem at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc. (PGDx), a leading provider of advanced cancer genome testing products and services, today announced that it has licensed rights to patent pending microsatellite instability (MSI) testing technology from Johns Hopkins University to help identify candidates for immune checkpoint inhibition. PGDx already includes the MSI technology in its pan cancer genomic tissue assays for patients and drug developers, and will be incorporating it into the recently launched PlasmaSELECT™ 64 non-invasive pan cancer assay. The company also includes the MSI technology in its PROGENEUS™ technology transfer enterprise solution, which enables advanced cancer genomic testing by local and regional laboratories that have next-generation sequencing (NGS) capabilities.
We recently released our inaugural PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor as a comprehensive resource on all matters venture capital. You can download the full 20-page report for free, but if you’d like to fast forward to the highlights, we’ve collated the top charts below:
