Verana Health, a technology company that is curating and analyzing real-world clinical data to advance patient care, today announced that it has acquired the technology assets and team behind PYA Analytics (PYAA).
Verana Health also announced the close of a $100 million investment led by GV. New investors Bain Capital Ventures, Casdin Capital, and Define Ventures also participated in the round along with the company’s existing slate of investors. Renowned life sciences investor Brook Byers continues to serve as Chairman of Verana’s Board.
“Verana Health is building the team and technology to unlock deep clinical insights that support the development of new treatments while increasing our understanding of how these treatments can benefit patients more broadly,” said Dr. Krishna Yeshwant, General Partner at GV. “Under the leadership of its strong management team, Verana continues to redefine how we approach medical research.”
Verana’s platform aggregates regulatory-grade datasets through its partnership with two of the largest clinical databases in medicine, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) IRIS® Registry, and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Axon Registry®. The company curates and analyzes this de-identified EHR-derived data to advance medical research and patient care in the areas of ophthalmic and neurologic diseases. Verana plans to expand into additional therapeutic categories over the next year as well as integrate imaging, genomic, and claims data sources.
“Verana is assembling the most comprehensive datasets in medicine across multiple disease types with the goal of accelerating medical research for patients with ophthalmic and neurologic conditions,” said Miki Kapoor, CEO of the Verana Health. “The financing and the addition of PYAA enable us to enrich these large clinical databases, creating a longitudinal view of the complete patient journey to inform research and patient care.”
PYAA was founded in 2013 by scientists and engineers from nearby Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the largest multi-program science, and technology laboratory in the United States. Members of PYAA have led projects that include the linking of clinical records with images to improve early detection, the utilization of satellite images with other data sources to inform geospatial analysis, and early members of the Human Genome Project. The data scientists, engineers, and data architects joining through the acquisition will greatly diversify and expand the scope of Verana’s capabilities.
“PYA Analytics is a data science company that develops state-of-the-art products for data linking and analysis,” said Dr. Brian Worley, Co-founder and CEO of PYA Analytics. “We are thrilled to join Verana to enrich these extraordinary clinical databases and find answers to some of the most pressing challenges in medicine.”
The PYAA team will remain in Knoxville, and Verana plans to hire and grow the office in the coming months. The company also intends to further scale its San Francisco headquarters and New York office in the coming year.
About Verana Health
Verana Health is a technology company assembling the largest clinical databases in medicine. Verana Health utilizes this real-world data to derive clinical and business insights for physicians and life science companies through its regulatory-grade data platform. By activating this vast amount of data, Verana Health can learn from the collective experience of millions of individual patients to empower physicians and accelerate research for patients. Learn more at veranahealth.com.
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Source: Verana Health
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