That needed to change. Through our affiliate FBRI, F-Prime has had a long-standing commitment to cure neurodegenerative diseases. But all previous disease-modifying trials in this arena had failed. In the past decade, though, major scientific insights into the underlying genetic causes and biological processes—along with new translational medicine tools—gave us hope for a different future.
We saw an unprecedented opportunity for a serious, well-funded effort to discover and develop new, effective therapies to treat and cure Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, and other rare neurodegenerative diseases.
So we seeded a new company. Named after the highest mountain peak in the United States, Denali Therapeutics aspires to conquer a most challenging problem by adopting a rigorous approach to drug development, identifying the right patients, observing treatment efficacy at earlier stages, and conducting clinical trials geared towards patient success.
We partnered with other like-minded investors and, through our deep relationships in the field, were able to attract Ryan Watts as CEO, who in turn assembled a spectacular team. Denali Therapeutics has attracted some of the most talented scientific innovators in the world who bring extensive experience and an intense passion to develop therapies for these devastating diseases.
Since being founded in 2015, Denali Therapeutics has raised more than $300M privately and in December 2017 went public, breaking the 2017 record for initial market valuation of a biotech company.
“The team at F-Prime led the founding of Denali and helped create a company focused on solving big medical problems. They brought the scientific and business firepower to rapidly found and grow Denali.”
—Ryan Watts, CEO
Could this be improved by solving a communication problem?
That’s what Jay Desai and David Berkowitz believed. So they co-founded PatientPing, a community of providers coordinating patient care through real-time notifications across facilities, networks, and even states. When we met Jay and David, they had recently founded the company and were sharing co-working space. We were immediately impressed with their industry knowledge, passion, and vision for improving provider coordination across the continuum of care. F-Prime led the company’s seed investment and welcomed Jay and David into our offices as they began to build the team, develop product, and close early customers.
During the following year of sharing space and snacks, we enjoyed being close to the company as it scaled to ten team members and prepared for their Series A, which F-Prime was pleased to co-lead with GV. Since then, PatientPing has rapidly built a vast national network that enables thousands of providers around the country to share information in real time and better coordinate patient care.
“Since early on, when F-Prime generously shared the office you see in the picture, the team has consistently and thoughtfully supported us. They’ve been a terrific partner.”
—Jay Desai, CEO
Genomics plc’s vision is to use genomic insights to transform the drug discovery industry by getting better drugs developed more quickly and targeted at the right group of patients.
Brett Cook is a Partner at F-Prime, where he focuses on investments in healthcare technology and service companies. At F-Prime, Brett has led or participated in investments in Blue Rabbit (acquired by Wedgewood Pharmacy), Iora Health (acquired by One Medical), PatientPing (acquired by Appriss Heath), VitalWare (acquired by Health Catalyst), 1up Health, AppliedVR, BenchSci, Better Life Partners, Bluebird Kids Health, Equip, Expressable, NOCD, Notable, Paradigm Health, Patina, Proximie, Rippl, and Wellbeam, among others. While at F-Prime, and in collaboration with GV and the Broad Institute, Brett also helped launch and run Project Beacon, a social benefit organization that facilitated more than 1.5 million COVID tests for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and K-12 schools.
Prior to rejoining F-Prime in 2018, Brett led the finance team at PatientPing (acquired by Appriss Health), a healthcare technology company providing real-time admission and discharge notifications to coordinate patient care. Previously, Brett worked at Aledade and McKinsey & Company.
Brett holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.
PharmEasy is one of India’s largest healthcare delivery platforms. The company helps patients connect with local pharmacy stores and diagnostic centers in order to fulfill their medical needs.
Notable is an AI powered healthcare company that puts appointments on autopilot. By analyzing historical patterns of practice, Notable proactively automates away hundreds of manual repetitive tasks like adding diagnoses, orders, templates, billing codes, and more.
Nebula Genomics is a human genome sequencing and health big data company on a mission to usher in the era of genomic sequencing by building a large and trusted genomic and health data marketplace for consumers, researchers and the medical community. Using blockchain to ensure that consumers maintain control of their data and are compensated for its use, the Nebula marketplace will aggregate a critical mass of rich genetic information that researchers can analyze in order to accelerate drug development, streamline clinical trials, and usher in the era of truly personalized medicine. Nebula Genomics was acquired by ProPhase Labs in 2021.
CareStack™ is a cloud-based platform that combines dental practice management, patient engagement and data analytics.
Centivo is a new type of self-funded health plan built specifically for employers and their employees and families. The Company targets zero healthcare trend and improved healthcare outcomes by rewarding members and providers for smart choices and actions while delivering an exceptional member experience. Centivo serves as a health plan or third-party administrator (TPA) for employers and partners closely with local health plans and TPAs to enhance their offerings.
Benchling is the industry-leading software platform for life science R&D. Purpose-built for biologics, Benchling combines an Electronic Lab Notebook (ELN), Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), and a molecular biology design suite into a single, unified, cloud-based platform. It’s trusted by over 200,000 scientists — from pioneering academics and high-growth startups to all of the world’s top 50 biopharma companies.