Blog

Vestwell Debuts Industry’s First Full-Fiduciary, White-Labeled Retirement Platform

NEW YORK — Vestwell, the industry’s first and only full-fiduciary, white-labeled retirement platform for the RIA community and beyond, emerged from stealth mode today and announced $4.5 million in funding. The seed round of financing was led by FinTech Collective, with participation from F-Prime Capital, Primary Venture Partners and Commerce Ventures.

“Retirement savings is a $25 trillion market opportunity which we think is still best served by financial advisors. Vestwell’s mission is to provide advisors with a modern platform which reduces fees, increases transparency, and ensures compliance in a quickly shifting regulatory landscape,” said Aaron Schumm, founder and CEO of Vestwell. “We’re thrilled to partner with our deep FinTech-focused investors, who share this vision to build out this essential platform.”

Read More

FierceBiotech names Orchard Therapeutics Limited as one of its “Fierce 15” Biotech Companies of 2016

Orchard Therapeutics Limited is proud to report that it has been named by FierceBiotech as one of 2016’s Fierce 15 biotechnology companies, designating it as one of the most promising private biotechnology companies in the industry. The announcement was made during the FierceBiotech Drug Development Forum, which took place Monday September 19 in Boston, MA.

Orchard Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to bringing transformative ex-vivo gene therapies to patients with serious and life-threatening orphan diseases.

Read More

Recurly CEO Dan Burkhart on how to eliminate subscription friction

Merchants and consumers benefit from relationships that stretch out for a long time, with recurring payments, trust and knowledge of just what the consumer is getting for that commitment. Easier said than done. In the latest Topic TBD, Recurly CEO Dan Burkhart tells Karen Webster what it will take to eliminate “subscription friction.”

Read More

Flywire offers tips to avoid college payment processor scams

If you know a college student — particularly a foreign one — tell them to watch out for “tuition payment processors.” They’ve been targeting non-U.S. students.

There are nearly 1 million foreign students going to U.S. colleges. They’re such a big target for scamsters because they spend more than $14 billion in tuition.

So-called payment processors act as middlemen between students and colleges. But the money earmarked for tuition often doesn’t get to the intended university, according to Flywire, a firm specializing in international payments.

Read More

With its software, TraceLink capitalizes on drug counterfeiting crackdown

The scourge of counterfeit prescription drugs, which have sickened patients and bedeviled health officials worldwide for decades, has led to a global crackdown — and a multibillion-dollar opportunity for TraceLink, Shabbir Dahod’s software startup.

A three-year-old US law requires drug makers and their contractors to begin tracing shipments of medicines by November 2017. As the pharmaceutical companies scramble to comply, technology vendors are developing tools to help them document the paths of drugs from manufacturers to distributors anddispensers and then to the pharmacies that sell them.

Dahod’s company, TraceLink Inc., is preparing to capitalize on the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, passed in 2013 along with similar laws and regulations taking effect in coming years in Europe, China, Japan, and several other places. The tracking will start with large lots of drugs shipped on pallets in the United States, but by 2023 it will extend to smaller containers, and distributors will have to plug into interconnected networks.

Read More

Flywire on tackling the two Rs of x-border payments

Receivers and reconciliation are two of the biggest frictions in cross-border payments. And it’s especially acute when that receiver is an institution receiving thousands of payments each day. Ryan Frere, VP of global payments at Flywire, joined Karen Webster at PYMNTS to talk about the one thing that can remove the pain.

Read More

Eris Exchange opens London office and announces significant sales and marketing expansion

Eris Exchange announced the opening of a London office and the hiring of Timothy Stack as Managing Director, Head of Europe. Mr. Stack will be based in London and will be responsible for sales, marketing and strategic partnerships in Europe.

Eris’ expansion to Europe follows in the wake of a strategic investment by CBOE in late May, and complements an aggressive expansion of its global sales and marketing team. Geoffrey Sharp joined Eris late last year as the Global Head of Sales, and is overseeing the expansion of the group’s sales and marketing capabilities in London, New York and Chicago.

Read More

 

PatientPing helps accountable care organizations track patient care

Boston-based PatientPing has found a unique way to connect providers across the country instantly. Co-founded in 2013 by former CMS Innovation Center strategist Jay Desai, PatientPing informs providers when their patient is admitted to an unaffiliated facility with real-time notifications, or pings.

The notifications are a simplified, web-based version of an electronic health record that identifies the facility and the physician treating the patient. With that information, providers can connect with each other to discuss appropriate treatment options for the patient and coordinate continuum-of-care strategies. Providers connect via phone, email or fax.

 

Read More

Stride Health launches financial health app “Stride Drive” to protect 1099 income

Stride Health, the first benefits platform for independent workers, announced the release of Stride Drive, an app that maximizes independent drivers’ take-home income by easily managing their tax deductible expenses.

With Stride Drive, Stride Health makes a leap into serving the financial health component of workers’ benefits, helping independent workers hit their income goals by maximizing the portion of income that they take home. Stride Drive is an end-to-end solution that enables workers to keep more of what they earn when it comes to taxes and links directly with their benefits.

As one of Stride’s key partners, Uber piloted Stride Drive with more than 20,000 drivers this summer, and is now rolling it out to driver-partners nationally.

Read More

Denali Therapeutics announces first clinical trial application, key collaborations and $130M Series B

Denali Therapeutics Inc. (“Denali”) today announced several critical milestones in the company’s growth, including its first Clinical Trial Application (“CTA”) to initiate a Phase 1 trial, previously undisclosed collaborations and licensing deals, and a $130 million Series B equity financing.

“We are pleased to share some of the significant progress we have made in building out Denali’s systematic and novel approaches and capabilities to defeat degeneration,” said Ryan Watts, PhD, CEO. “We continue to progress toward our ultimate goal of helping patients who suffer from debilitating neurodegenerative disease,” said Dr. Watts.

Denali is developing a diversified portfolio of therapeutics, based on scientific insights into the genetic causes and biological processes underlying neurodegenerative disease.  The company has selected four specific pathways that are implicated as triggers or effectors of neurodegeneration: degenogenes (genes that cause neurodegenerative disease when mutated), defective intracellular trafficking, glial dysfunction and axon degeneration. Denali is pursuing a rigorous biomarker-driven development strategy for each of these pathways.

 

Read More