Lyfegen, which gives a platform for value-based contracting for high-cost medicine, introduced it had raised $8 million in Sequence A funding.
The spherical was led by aMoon, with participation from APEX Ventures and different buyers. The startup, which is headquartered in Switzerland and the U.S., gives software program that goals to assist pharma corporations, payers, suppliers and medical expertise corporations undertake value-based contracts. It features a library of contracts, instruments to simulate how fashions will work earlier than implementing them, and information assortment to trace efficiency and outcomes.
“We at the moment work with main authorities payers and medical health insurance corporations in Europe, the U.S. and the Center East, and a number of the world’s largest pharma corporations,” Girisha Fernando, CEO and founding father of Lyfegen, mentioned in an announcement.
“Our plan now could be to additional increase our presence within the U.S., partnering with each non-public and public healthcare insurance coverage corporations. The transfer away from volume-based healthcare has by no means been extra wanted, and we’re completely satisfied to play an necessary position within the shift to value-based contracting.”
Good stethoscope firm Eko obtained a $2.7 million grant from the Nationwide Institutes of Well being to develop a machine studying algorithm that detects and classifies pulmonary hypertension.
The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Direct Section II grant will go towards an algorithm that makes use of phonocardiogram (PCG) and electrocardiogram (ECG) information collected by Eko’s stethoscopes to search out pulmonary hypertension, or hypertension, that impacts arteries within the lungs and the appropriate aspect of coronary heart.
Eko has beforehand partnered with Lifespan Well being System’s Cardiovascular Institute to gather real-world PCG and ECG information that will likely be a part of the algorithm’s improvement.
“The main purpose of this examine is to find out whether or not an Eko algorithm primarily based on phonocardiography coupled with electrocardiography can determine the presence and severity of pulmonary hypertension when in comparison with the present gold commonplace,” mentioned Dr. Gaurav Choudhary, principal investigator and director of cardiovascular analysis on the Lifespan Cardiovascular Institute.
“This machine studying algorithm has the potential to be a low price, simply implementable and sustainable medical expertise that assists healthcare professionals in figuring out extra sufferers with pulmonary hypertension.”
Eko mentioned that is their fourth SBIR grant. The corporate not too long ago received FDA 510(k) clearance for an algorithm that detects and characterizes coronary heart murmurs in grownup and pediatric sufferers.
Halo, which gives a platform that goals to attach corporations and scientists for analysis and improvement, raised $2.6 million in seed funding.
Members within the spherical embody Uneven Capital Companions, Village World, AirAngels, 23andMe cofounder and CEO Anne Wojcicki, cofounder and CTO of e-mail consumer Superhuman Conrad Irwin, and Rachel Hepworth, head of promoting at organizational software program firm Notion.
The platform permits biopharma, medical system, shopper items and agriculture corporations to put up requests for proposals for particular wants or open calls round basic analysis pursuits. Scientists can then reply with their proposals, and firms can choose researchers for partnerships.
Halo plans to make use of the seed to rent new staff, develop new collaboration options on the platform and increase its community of scientists.
“Collaborating in R&D is simply as a lot about relationships as it’s in regards to the analysis itself. Nevertheless, corporations nonetheless depend on practices that do not scale, like listening to a chat at a convention or studying a journal article. This limits companies to a handful of current relationships and pure happenstance,” Kevin Leland, founder and CEO of Halo, mentioned in an announcement.
“Halo connects company R&D groups instantly with scientists. By our platform, we engineer serendipity so corporations can rapidly and simply scout for brand new applied sciences, increase their networks globally and construct relationships with scientists 12 months spherical.”
