Sengine Precision Medicine Inc. boosted its total fundraising to $19 million with the recent closing of a $10 million series A2 led by the Washington Research Foundation with support from Alethea Fulcrum Fund, Vincere Capital Biotech LLC, Bangarang Group and others. The A2 follows on an earlier $5 million raised in the original series A. Sengine’s Paris Test predicts drug responses using a patient’s cancer cells to grow a tumor organoid that replicates the functionality and genomic characteristics of the original tumor, enabling hyper-personalization of cancer treatment.
Spintech MRI Inc. raised $6.5 million in series A financing to expand deployment of MRI software designed to improve and accelerate diagnosis and treatment of Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases. The FDA-cleared Strategically Acquired Gradient Echo (Stage) platform is currently in use at more than 50 U.S. hospitals and institutions, including the Yale School of Medicine for advanced research, analysis and treatment of Parkinson’s disease.
Idrx Inc. launched with a $122 million oversubscribed series A round to boost precision drug combinations in cancer, with a first focus on non-PDGFR-driven gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST). The Plymouth, Mass.-based firm aims to develop a pairing, potentially with add-ons, powerful enough to handle existing mutations and those that turn up during treatment. Combo therapy attacks “not just the driver mutations, but also the key secondary mutations,” co-founder and CEO Ben Auspitz told BioWorld, and thereby “block every escape route the cancer has.”
The $65 million series A money banked by Vicinitas Therapeutics Inc. will boost efforts with the company’s Deubiquitinase Targeting Chimera (DUBTAC) platform, developed by way of an academic-industry research collaboration between the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.
Forsight Robotics Ltd. amassed up to $55 million in series A financing led by Adani Group, with participation by existing investors Eclipse Ventures and Mithril Capital. The new funds will be used to further development of Forsight’s Oryom system, a surgical platform for fully robotic cataract surgery.
Controlling the epigenetics of a patient, figuring out what genes are expressed and understanding their level of expression, is at the center of Epic Bio, a new company founded by Stanley Qi, co-inventor on the CRISPR patent held by the University of California.
Xilis Inc. added $19 million to its series A financing round, bringing the total amount raised to over $89 million. FPV Ventures led the extension, with participation from Alexandria Venture Investments and EQT Life Sciences, Mubadala Capital Management, Pear Ventures, GV, the Duke Angel Network, Catalio Capital Management, Two Sigma Ventures, Felicis Ventures and Alix Ventures.
Helixon Ltd. raised ¥500 million (US$75 million) in a series A round for its artificial intelligence (AI) drug development platform. The Beijing-based company is building a next-generation AI computing platform by combining it with self-developed high-throughput experimental technologies, aiming to provide drug developers with an intelligent system for molecular computation, simulation and design.
Kranus Health GmbH has raised $6.5 million in series A funding to ramp commercialization of its digital therapy for treating erectile dysfunction (ED). Eleven European investors participated in this fundraising. The round was led by early-stage health care venture capitalists Karista SAS, while Peak Pride Management GmbH also joined the funding round.
Helixon Ltd. raised ¥500 million (US$75 million) in a series A round for its artificial intelligence (AI) drug development platform. The Beijing-based company is building a next-generation AI computing platform by combining it with self-developed high-throughput experimental technologies, aiming to provide drug developers with an intelligent system for molecular computation, simulation and design.