Adagene Announces Collaboration for Discovery of Novel CAR-T with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Sana Biotechnology Launches Focusing on Engineering Cells to Create a New Class of Medicines
Avidity Biosciences’ Arthur A. Levin Publishes Review of Therapeutic Approaches of Targeting RNA in the New England Journal of Medicine
Mercy Health Network Partners with PatientPing to Improve Transitions of Care Across Iowa
Precision BioSciences Appoints Rare Disease Executive Shalini Sharp to Its Board of Directors
DURHAM, N.C.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Dec 20, 2018–Precision BioSciences, a genome editing company dedicated to improving life, announced today that industry veteran Shalini Sharp has joined the company’s Board of Directors. An established business leader in the life sciences industry, Sharp is the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Vice President of Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical. Sharp brings a wealth of experience in financial management and corporate strategy in rare disease, gene therapy and oncology.
“We are thrilled to welcome Shalini Sharp to the Precision BioSciences Board of Directors,” said Precision CEO Matt Kane. “Shalini’s broad understanding of the financial markets within rare disease and oncology will be invaluable as Precision progresses into clinical trials of its genome-edited product portfolio.”
“I am excited to work with Precision as the company develops new therapies based on its next generation gene editing technology, ARCUS, which has the potential to help patients achieve better outcomes,” said Sharp. “I have also been impressed by the scaled manufacturing process Precision has developed, which is a critical and sometimes overlooked factor.”
CynergisTek and Protenus Join Forces as Partners to Protect Patient Privacy
AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CynergisTek, Inc. (NYSE AMERICAN: CTEK), a leader in healthcare cybersecurity, privacy, and information assurance, today announced it has formed a preferred partnership with Protenus, a healthcare compliance analytics platform that protects patient privacy, to help health systems nationwide enhance patient privacy monitoring programs. The partnership will grant health systems access to Protenus’ robust analytics that leverages artificial intelligence to gather data related to potential patient privacy risks, along with CynergisTek’s Patient Privacy Monitoring Service, a managed service offering designed to implement and maintain an effective privacy monitoring analytics program with skilled privacy resources.
According to the Protenus Breach Barometer, insider incidents accounted for 23 percent of all breaches that occurred at health systems in Q3 2018. This figure will only continue increasing, indicating that now more than ever, health systems need a cost-effective solution to meet the daily challenges of managing patient privacy. To address this need, CynergisTek and Protenus formed a preferred partnership to combine CynergisTek’s industry experience in healthcare consulting and optimization of privacy programs with Prontenus’ strength in healthcare analytics technology to offer health systems both the people, processes, and technology components of a strong patient privacy monitoring program.
“As health systems face mounting challenges in creating and maintaining robust patient privacy monitoring programs, we identified a need to partner with a company offering complementary services so that health systems can act on the insights uncovered by our analytics,” said Nick Culbertson, CEO and Co-Founder of Protenus. “With a long-standing reputation as one of the leading authorities on healthcare security and privacy, we are confident that combining our technology with CynergisTek’s know-how will push the industry forward when it comes to making patient privacy a priority.”
Cytek Biosciences Ships 100th Advanced Flow Cytometry System
Company Ramping up Production to Meet Increasing Global Demand
FREMONT, Calif., Dec. 20, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Cytek Biosciences Inc., the preeminent provider of innovative flow cytometry solutions, has marked a significant milestone: the company has shipped 100 of its advanced flow cytometry systems. First introduced in June of last year, Cytek’s systems are rapidly gaining traction with scientists around the globe – giving them the ability to obtain deeper biological insights from a single sample and accelerate their fields of research.
A technique used to detect and measure the physical and chemical characteristics of a population of cells or particles, flow cytometry has become an invaluable tool in research and clinical studies with various biomedical and therapeutic applications such as investigating the role of the body’s immune system in fighting cancer, diagnosing leukemia and lymphoma, and detecting minimal residual disease in organ transplant patients. While the benefits offered by flow cytometry are well known throughout the scientific community, adoption has lagged due its cost-prohibitive, workflow-intensive nature.
“At Cytek, we are focused on far more than just selling units – we are fueling a movement,” noted Dr. Wenbin Jiang, CEO of Cytek Biosciences. “We’re on a mission to make the advanced instrumentation that was once available to very few scientists accessible to more researchers, and this latest achievement is a strong indicator that our mission is resonating strongly with the scientific community.”
Cytek’s systems provide ease of use, an unusually high performance-to-price ratio, experimental design flexibility and high-quality data. Additionally, its three laser flow cytometer makes more than 24 colors possible. The company is fast becoming the go-to flow cytometry source for scientists in immunology, immuno-oncology, leukemia and lymphoma labs, cancer/stem cell research, and extra-cellular vesicle research. In fact, robust global sales have led Cytek to ramp up manufacturing and expand its operations team in order to keep up with demand.
“The sale of our one hundredth system in less than 18 months is an indication that our technology is hitting the sweet spot for price and performance,” continued Jiang. “We plan to keep this momentum going by continuing to extend and accelerate our reach and capabilities.”
AvantStay Secures $5M in Funding to Deliver Short-term Group Rental Experiences
Round will accelerate expansion of revolutionary hospitality brand’s property footprint, delivering more customized experience options for group travelers
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AvantStay, a hospitality brand aimed at revolutionizing group travel, announced an additional $5 million round of funding led by Bullpen Capital. Other investors include F-Prime Capital, Zeno Ventures, and Convivialité Ventures, with continued participation from existing investors Abstract Ventures and Presidio Bay Ventures. The funding will fuel AvantStay’s growth, as the company extends its unique approach to the short-term rental market to more properties, while expanding its offering of integrated activities to provide groups with indelible experiences.
AvantStay empowers groups to have amazing travel experiences. By combining the authentic experiences millennials crave with the consistency and comfort of a hospitality company, AvantStay delivers differentiated real estate, best-in-class tech, and premium properties designed for groups of all sizes. Each hand-selected AvantStay property offers thoughtful, localized experiences to fit every group’s needs, from experiential in-home games to personalized recommendations. AvantStay relies on tech automation to communicate with guests, manage maintenance and cleaning, and deliver exceptional customer service.
Currently, AvantStay maintains more than 60 vacation properties across seven U.S. markets, featuring more than 300 rooms in total. AvantStay also maintains a close relationship with Airbnb, collaborating on technology initiatives, policy updates and market demands. The latest funding will help AvantStay further invest in its operational technology infrastructure, expand to new markets and grow the number of properties under its control to more than 200 and over 1,000 rooms by the end of 2019.
Compass Therapeutics Expands Leadership Team with Appointments of Chief Medical Officer and Chief Financial Officer
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Compass Therapeutics, a biotechnology company committed to the ambitious goal of comprehensively drugging the human immune system, today announced the appointment of veteran biopharma leaders Yu Liu, M.D., Ph.D., MBA, as chief medical officer and Lynne Sullivan as chief financial officer.
Dr. Liu, who most recently served as vice president and head of early clinical development at Pfizer, will oversee Compass’ development of a deep pipeline of immuno-oncology and autoimmune disease candidates. The company’s lead candidate, CTX-471, a fully human monoclonal antibody that induces remodeling of the tumor microenvironment and leads to immune-mediated destruction of solid tumors, is expected to enter the clinic in the first quarter of 2019. More than 15 therapeutic candidates are advancing through preclinical development and the research team continues to generate an exciting array of novel candidates through the company’s proprietary antibody development platform.
Ms. Sullivan, who most recently served as senior vice president, finance at Biogen, will lead financial planning and management at Compass at a time of significant growth for the company.
“Yu and Lynne bring essential skills and expertise to Compass as we prepare to take our lead program into the clinic in the coming months,” said Thomas Schuetz, M.D., Ph.D., the company’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “Their depth of experience and the strength of their leadership will serve us well, and we’re excited to welcome them aboard.”