Funds are always flowing in the life science industry. Here’s where the money’s headed this week.
Funds are always flowing in the life science industry. Here’s where the money’s headed this week.
ProKidney LP
ProKidney snagged the biggest deal of the week announcing a merge with a SPAC, a special purpose acquisition company, in order to go public. The deal will score ProKidney $825 million cash to fuel its Phase 3 development cell therapy designed to treat chronic kidney disease. The technology offers the promise of restoring organ function using the patient’s own kidney cells. After the merger, the companies combined equity will come in at $2.64 billion. If successful, ProKidney’s approach could potentially be the first to reverse the loss of organ function in chronic kidney disease patients. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of this year.
Backed by the innovation investment arm of Johnson & Johnson, Verana scooped up a $150 million Series E for its AI-powered health data engine VeraQ. Building out a real-world data network with healthcare providers, Verana is expanding its data footprint to advance clinical trials, software-as-a-service and real-world evidence. High quality data sets are essential to increasing quality of care standards and driving life science R&D to benefit patients.
With a clear goal of protecting retinal disease patients’ vision, Michigan-based ONL grasped $46.9 million in their recent Series B round. Funds will fuel the expansion of their lead program, ONL1204 into two chronic indications – open-angle glaucoma and GA associated with dry AMD – while closing out a Phase 1 study in retinal detachment. Plans are already underway to launch Phase 2 programs for the small molecule Fas inhibitor, designed to protect key retinal cells from cell death. Retinal cell death is the leading cause of blindness.
Chronus Health
As labs and hospitals are quickly overwhelmed with testing needs fueled by the global COVID-19 pandemic, rapid, on-site solutions are becoming more and more popular. Chronus offers a portable, in-vitro diagnostics platform for real-time blood diagnostics at the point-of-care that can handle roughly 85% of the blood tests performed annually. The system is low cost, and compact while improving patient outcomes by decreasing time-to-care results. According to the release, Chronus’ recent $22 million Series A will “scale its research, engineering, and data science teams, in addition to accelerating the company’s product and technology development.”
Dermaliq Therapeutics
Spinning out from Delaware-based Novaliq, Dermaliq is beating its own path into the medical dermatology space. With skin diseases ranking fourth on the non-fatal disease burden of the world, skin health has a significant impact on patients’ overall wellbeing. A $15 million Series A will get Dermaliq up and running for a next-generation of skin care therapies with cutaneous drug delivery with “unmatched bioavailability.” Three Phase 1/2a clinical programs will advance for hair loss, plaque psoriasis and bacterial skin and soft tissue infections.
