Quartet Health announced today that it has secured an additional $40 million in funding to expand product capabilities across its primary care and behavioral health platforms. This latest Series C round was led by existing investors F-Prime Capital Partners and Polaris Partners, and also includes current funders Oak HC/FT and GV as well as a new investor, Deerfield Management. The round brings the company’s total funding to $87 million.
“Making collaboration between primary care physicians and behavioral health specialists work is a must if we are ever going to improve the overall health of our country,” said Quartet Health founder and CEO Arun Gupta. “The bridge between mental and physical health is being built, and it’s technology that’s leading the charge.”
Paul Stead Joins Adaptimmune as Vice President of Business Development
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. and OXFORD — Adaptimmune Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq:ADAP), a leader in T-cell therapy to treat cancer, today announced that Paul Stead, B. Pharm, PhD, MBA, MR PharmS has joined the Company as Vice President of Business Development.
“I am delighted to welcome Paul to Adaptimmune. Paul has a tremendous wealth of business development experience and joins Adaptimmune at a critical inflection point in the Company’s journey, as we are focused on data delivery from our wholly owned assets,” said Helen Tayton-Martin, Adaptimmune’s Chief Business Officer. “To remain leaders in the TCR T-cell therapy field, we must evaluate a broad range of technology partnerships, and Paul’s extensive experience in business development and competitive intelligence will be a tremendous asset to us.”
“I am thrilled to assume this challenging business development role, building upon my existing experience in pharmaceutical discovery and development,” said Paul. “This is a pivotal year for Adaptimmune, and I am eager to forge partnerships with other industry leaders as we bring TCR T‑cell therapy closer to approval.”
Cipla Health to expand consumer health biz with new launches and acquisitions
Cipla Health, the consumer healthcare arm of Cipla, plans to revitalize its over-the-counter (OTC) consumer business through more in-house launches and brand acquisitions in the coming quarters.
at switching Cipla’s prescription products into consumer products and organic launches wherever there is a huge unmet need of it like the immune-boosters that we launched now,” said Anantha Nayak, Chief Executive Officer of Cipla Health.
“We are also actively looking at any kind of inorganic growth through mergers and acquisitions,” Nayak added.
He said the company is looking at new product launches in segments such as gastrointestinal, pain and analgesic, cough and cold and nutritional supplements.
Lacey mental health hospital approved for US HealthVest
A new mental health hospital in Lacey has been given the go-ahead by the Washington state Department of Health.
US HealthVest has been awarded the “certificate of need” for a 75-bed behavioral health center to be placed in an old office building in Lacey’s Woodland District.
Chief Executive Officer Richard A. Kresch, M.D, says the facility will be an in- and out-patient treatment center with an average stay of around seven to eight days.
Kresch says the hospital will specialize in treatment for Detox, psychiatric needs, and behavioral services. He believes the center will be open in late 2018.
Oviva Health brings in $12M for dietary support platform
Zürich, Switzerland-based Oviva Health, developer of a dietary intervention delivery platform, has secured $12 million in Series A funding. Participants in the round include Albion Capital, Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital Partners, Partech Ventures, and Walking Ventures.
Oviva was founded in 2014 after observing dietitians’ need for improved patient engagement and is currently active in Switzerland, Germany, and the UK, CEO and cofounder Kai Eberhardt explained. Along with allowing patients to self-record eating habits, weight, and physical activity, the platform’s mobile app allows dietitians to directly communicate with their patients to provide remote diet and nutrition guidance.
Axoni’s startup, Blockchain, Gets a Wall Street Win: ‘We Know the Thing Works Now’
The prospect of blockchain technology remaking financial services just moved a step closer to reality after banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. completed a successful six-month test in the $2.8 trillion equity swaps market.
The program, managed by blockchain startup Axoni, kept track of the swaps contracts after they were executed, recording things like amendments or termination of the deals, stock splits and dividends, and achieved a “100 percent success rate,” Axoni said in a statement Monday. Other participants include the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Citigroup Inc., BNP Paribas SA and Credit Suisse Group AG.
“We’re on a path to take this forward,” Axoni Chief Executive Officer Greg Schvey said in an interview. “We know the thing works now.”
Apellis Pharmaceuticals Announces Closing of its Initial Public Offering
CRESTWOOD, Ky. — Apellis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:APLS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel therapeutic compounds to treat disease through the inhibition of the complement system, today announced the closing of its initial public offering of 10,714,000 shares of common stock at a public offering price of $14.00 per share. The total gross proceeds to Apellis were approximately $150.0 million, before deducting underwriting discounts and commissions and expenses payable by Apellis. All of the shares were sold by Apellis. In addition, Apellis granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 1,607,100 additional shares of common stock at the public offering price, less underwriting discounts and commissions, to cover over-allotments, if any. The shares commenced trading on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “APLS” on Thursday, November 9, 2017.
Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and Evercore ISI acted as joint book-running managers for the offering.
F-Prime leads $45M investment into Threat Stack
Threat Stack, provider of the industry’s most comprehensive intrusion detection platform for cloud, hybrid-cloud, and on-premise environments, today announced that it has raised $45 million in a Series C funding round led by F-Prime Capital Partners (the venture capital group associated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments), and Eight Roads Ventures, with participation from existing investors Scale Venture Partners, .406 Ventures, and Accomplice. As part of the funding, which brings the total investment in Threat Stack to more than $70 million, Gaurav Tuli of F-Prime will join Threat Stack’s Board of Directors, and Davor Hebel of Eight Roads Ventures will be an observer.
“The migration of computing workloads to public cloud environments represents the most significant shift in enterprise technology of the last 15 years. Cybersecurity continues to be the most acute challenge in the move to cloud, because cloud infrastructure is elastic and complex and attackers are operating at unprecedented speed and sophistication,” said Tuli. “Cloud security requires new approaches and new solutions, and Threat Stack is a rare security company that is purpose-built to address these unique challenges. Our investment will help drive continued innovation to meet the rapidly expanding market demand.”
On the heels of announcing 235% YoY revenue growth and 84% employee headcount expansion as of July, Threat Stack plans to grow its employee base another 30% by the end of 2017, while nearly doubling the size of its downtown Boston headquarters. The company is also committed to continued investment and innovation in Boston, as it simultaneously works to expand its footprint in North America and around the globe.
TraceLink acquires ROC IT Solutions
TraceLink Inc., which specializes in connecting the life sciences supply chain and providing real-time information sharing, has acquired ROC IT Solutions, a leader in intelligent edge data capture for serialized product inventory in the pharmaceutical supply chain.
The acquisition positions TraceLink as the only end-to-end platform that enables life sciences companies to capture, process and exchange serialized product data across a digital supply chain network and also more effectively manage warehouse product inventory at the “edge” of the supply chain.
By acquiring ROC IT and integrating the edge solution, EdgeTRAC, into its family of serialization software solutions, TraceLink now offers solutions for serialized receiving, picking, shipping, returns, deactivation, aggregation, de-aggregation, label printing, and tag management of pharmaceutical products, alongside its serialization software, country compliance solutions, and unique track and trace network currently used by more than 650 global customers to exchange compliance data with more than 255,000 supply chain endpoints.
PatientPing’s Community Comes to Wisconsin Through Partnership with Bellin Health
BOSTON — PatientPing, a health technology company that connects providers to seamlessly coordinate patient care, announced today it has launched in Wisconsin through its partnership with Bellin Health, an integrated healthcare delivery system based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This partnership means that providers within Bellin Health can now collaborate on shared patients with other providers outside their network and across the care continuum, enabling a team-based, coordinated approach to patient care.