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VitalWare™ Once Again Named to Inc. Magazine’s 36th Annual List of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies

For a 3rd year in a row, VitalWare™, a leading provider of healthcare revenue cycle SaaS solutions earned a spot on the Inc. Magazine 5000 Annual list of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies. VitalWare ranked #1467 on its continued strong three-year growth trend of 277%.

“It’s an incredible honor and validation to be named to the Inc. 5000 list for a 3rd year in a row,” said VitalWare’s CEO and President, Kerry Martin. “VitalWare’s growth and client success is a direct result of our solid client partnerships, innovative solutions, and stellar staff.”

VitalWare is only one of 18 Washington State companies to make the Inc. 5000 list for three consecutive years running, and the only SaaS technology company in the state to make the list from outside the Western Washington High Tech Corridor.

“We are very proud of the unique origins of VitalWare, and employ incredible talent from across the country, and across the healthcare industry to make sure we are continuously applying new thinking, and putting client experience at the center of our product development efforts,” added Martin.

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Stride Health Secures $23.5 Million in Series B Funding

Stride Health, the leading benefits provider for independent workers, today announced a $23.5 million Series B financing round led by F-Prime Capital Partners, with participation from existing investors Venrock and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) as well as new investors including Portag3 Ventures. The additional capital will fuel the expansion of Stride Health’s benefits offerings to provide today’s independent workforce with the support they need to thrive.

Launched in 2014, Stride Health’s platform provides independent workers with the security and peace of mind that, up until recently, was only available to those with traditional, full-time jobs. In addition to serving anyone self-employed — from real estate agents to artisans, plumbers and truck drivers — Stride partners with marketplaces and on-demand services including Care.com, DoorDash, Etsy, Instacart, Postmates, TaskRabbit and Uber, to support their independent workforces with easy access to benefits.

By empowering workers nationwide with world-class yet affordable health, vision and dental benefits, in addition to tax deduction support, Stride is leveling the playing field for today’s independent workforce.

“As individuals transition away from traditional 9-to-5 employment, we’re removing the barriers to affordable, accessible benefits to allow individuals to work how and when they want, without worrying about basic financial security,” said Noah Lang, co-founder and CEO of Stride Health. “We founded Stride so that self-employed Americans don’t have to go it alone. We have already provided hundreds of thousands of independent workers with the benefits guidance they need to build a business-of-one. I’m excited to partner with F-Prime which brings a rich history in health and financial services to deliver Stride’s ever-expanding benefits to more of America’s 68 million independent workers.”

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Artemis Health Secures $16 Million Series B Round to Equip Employers with Actionable Employment Benefits Data

Artemis Health, a company that offers a benefit optimization data platform for employers, received $16 million in Series B funding. The investment was led by F-Prime Capital (the venture capital funds of FMR LLC, the parent company of Fidelity Investments), with participation from previous investors Maverick Ventures and Kickstart Seed Fund. This is the second major round of funding Artemis Health has raised in 12 months, totaling $26 million to date, and will fuel the company’s rapid expansion through investments in thought leadership, product research & development, and key executive hires.
“We believe that everyone should have good healthcare they can afford, and this round of funding greatly enhances our ability to empower employers to make that a reality by leveraging their data,” explained Grant Gordon, CEO of Artemis Health. “As the cost of healthcare soars and healthcare policy remains in flux, the kind of insight the Artemis Platform provides is more critical than ever. We are seeing increasing demand for our benefits optimization platform from companies of all sizes, and these funds will not only allow us to serve our growing client base, but also to add some new and exciting capabilities to our platform.”

 

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Orient Speech Therapy Center Ltd. Collaboration First for China

Australia – In a ground-breaking first for both countries, The University of Newcastle (UON) has partnered with Orient Speech Therapy Center Limited (OST) to develop a world-class speech pathology training program for its clinics in China.

In its early stage of development in China, speech pathology is not offered at a tertiary level, contributing to an inadequate supply of speech pathologists treating serious conditions including autism, swallowing/feeding skills and speech therapy after cleft palate repair.

Recognising the vast and immediate needs of its more than one billion population, OST sought the help of UON’s global speech pathology curriculum expert, Dr Sally Hewat, to create a cutting-edge training programme, helping to produce China’s first cohort of world-class speech pathologists.

OST’s CEO, Edward Yiu said the collaboration was a vital step in advancing China’s burgeoning speech pathology industry. “This is the first time anyone has brought together speech pathology clinical practice and academic rigor to this degree in China so what we are doing is quite ground-breaking. It signals exciting advancements in the standards of speech pathology clinical practice in China, which are crucial to support the rapid growth of this emerging industry.”

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Orchard Therapeutics hires ex-PTC executive Mark Rothera as new CEO

A 2016 Fierce 15 winner and ultrarare disease startup Orchard Therapeutics has taken on Mark Rothera as its new president and chief.

Rothera, a near 30-year biopharma vet, comes to Orchard from controversial biotech PTC Therapeutics, where he served as its chief commercial officer. He’s also done stints as global president of Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, as well as VP and GM of commercial ops at Shire Human Genetic Therapies for the EMEA region.

Orchard is focused on ex vivo autologous hematopoietic stem cell gene therapy designed to restore normal gene function in primary immune deficiencies, metabolic diseases and hematological disorders.

This tech uses a sample of the patient’s own stem cells, which are modified with a functioning copy of the missing or faulty gene before being transplanted back into the patient’s body. Using the patient’s own cells (autologous) removes the need to search for a matching stem cell donor, which can take months or even years.

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Flywire And Volvo Give Cross-Border Car Leasing Wheels

Cars for international students can be a surprising complicated issue. Buying a car outright can be a hassle — it’s costly, and it might just be one more thing to sell off after graduation. Leasing might seem like the ideal option, but that, said Jeff Althaus, executive vice president and general manager at Flywire, comes pre-loaded with all kinds of friction points for international students.

Depending on a student’s home country, paying with a local currency or payment method can be tricky. And, many of these students, even those from affluent families, may not have a credit score that is easily interpreted by U.S. lenders.

Add to that the complicated structure of car sales between the manufacturers and the franchise dealerships, the financial department that handles financing and the fact that the car will need insurance for the entire time it’s on the road, and putting an international student behind the wheel quickly becomes a complicated and frustrating process.

It was that complication and frustration into which Volvo kept running headlong — and eventually became the reason the two firms collaborated on the International Students program. The program, which was announced Thursday (August 3), features a collaboration the pair have had in place, albeit privately, since the program’s launch in March of 2017.

“Volvo was actually having success in leasing to international students coming to study in the U.S.” Althaus said, “but [it] had no way to reconcile the vehicle payments as they were moving through the dealership.”

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PlasmaGen BioSciences raises $25 mn from Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime

Mumbai | Biopharmaceutical company PlasmaGen BioSciences announced an investment of $25 million (Rs 160 crore) led by Eight Roads Ventures and US-based F-Prime Capital Partners.
PlasmaGeb BioSciences, which specialises in blood plasma derived products, is founded by serial entrepreneur Vinod Nahar, who also founded RSM Pharma and Trigenesis Lifesciences.
The company’s chief executive officer Ranjeet S Ajmani said: “There is a large gap between demand and supply of plasma products, not only in India but across Asia. India is strategically placed as an emerging economy with a huge demand potential.”

Eight Roads Venture is the investment arm of Fidelity International that has earlier invested in Chai Point, Medwell Ventures and Unbxd. As part of the investment, Dr Prem Pavoor, a partner at Eight Roads Ventures and Dr Robert Weisskoff, a partner at F-Prime Capital Partners will join the board at PlasmaGen.

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Protenus Profile: This Baltimore startup is trying to keep your hospital records safe from cyberattacks

Understandably so, it’s pretty easy for people to gain access to medical records in hospitals. Various physicians, nurses and, sometimes, medical students need to be able to easily update a patients’ record every time they treat them.

But, on the flip side, it’s pretty easy for outside hackers to gain access, too, as seen in the May WannaCry ransomware attacks that targeted 16 hospitals in the England as part of its hacks.

That’s where Baltimore-based startup Protenus comes in.

Founded by two Johns Hopkins University alumni, Protenus is part-health tech startup, part-cybersecurity company. Aimed at protecting data for healthcare providers, the startup tracks the activity of those who usually update a patients’ medical records — physicians, nurses, medical students — and creates a profile. If anything pops up that’s out of the usual, Protenus’ systems alert the appropriate parties.

“As medical students, we could just go in and edit those records, and that creates a real problem for healthcare because you have to give people more access and assume that they are doing it to help the patient,” said co-founder Nick Culbertson in an interview. “But, at the same time, it really depends on the individual to follow through on that in the industry.”

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Orchard Therapeutics Announces That OTL-101 Has Received a Rare Paediatric Disease Designation

London, UK — Orchard Therapeutics Limited (“Orchard”), a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to bringing transformative autologous ex-vivo gene therapies to patients with rare diseases of high unmet medical need is delighted to announce today that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted a Rare Paediatric Disease Designation to OTL-101, its lead programme for the treatment of adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency, commonly known as ADA-SCID or “bubble baby” disease. OTL-101 is developed in collaboration with the University of California, Los Angeles (“UCLA”) and University College London / Great Ormond Street Hospital (“UCL” and “GOSH”).

ADA-SCID is a rare inherited disorder of the immune system. ADA-SCID is caused by mutations in the gene encoding for the enzyme adenosine deaminase, which result in a severe deficiency in white blood cells and life-threatening infections. In the absence of treatment, ADA-SCID is fatal within the first year of life.

To be granted Rare Paediatric Disease Designation, a drug must be designed for the treatment of a serious or life-threatening disease which affects less than 200,000 patients in the United States and which primarily includes patients aged between 0 and 18 years.

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Amphora Medical Closes $35.5 Million Series B Financing

MINNEAPOLIS — Amphora Medical, Inc., a developer of medical devices to treat overactive bladder (OAB), today announced the closing of a $35.5 million Series B financing. The financing was led by Longitude Capital and Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE:BSX),  and included participation by HBM Healthcare Investments, as well as existing venture investors F-Prime Capital Partners and Baird Capital. Amphora will use the proceeds from this financing to fund the U.S. pivotal study for its Selective Bladder Denervation System in women with OAB.

OAB is characterized by the frequent, sudden and desperate need to urinate, with or without urgency-associated urinary incontinence, which interferes with normal daily activities. Amphora’s propriety Selective Bladder Denervation System is a minimally-invasive, cystoscopic device which uses targeted ablation (fulguration) to dampen the signals of the nerves responsible for the symptoms of OAB at their source in the bladder, while preserving the nerves responsible for natural bladder function.

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