Good day. Nature is the source of many medications, like antibiotics and cancer treatments. But uncovering those gold nuggets has historically been a slog.

Biotech Enveda, however, is speeding up that process with a platform technology that uses artificial intelligence to search for compounds in nature with medicinal potential.

Founded in 2019, the startup is valued at over $1 billion after its just announced $150 million Series D round. Enveda’s drug for atopic dermatitis drug, or eczema, discovered through its platform, is in human studies and earlier-stage programs are advancing toward clinical trials.

That progress attracted interest from investors and large drugmakers, which gave Enveda options as it weighed its next move. Premji Invest led this new financing.

“Our plan was to always be ready when the market was,” said Enveda Founder and Chief Executive Viswa Colluru. “To some extent it was planned opportunism.”

Biotech venture funding has fallen this year as investors have grown more selective, while initial public offerings in the sector have all but vanished. But Boulder, Colo.-based Enveda, which raised a $150 million Series C that closed in February, has been drawing investors to its platform technology that is also producing potential drugs for conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease.

Building Enveda in Colorado helped it and employees stretch their dollars, Colluru said. The company, which just crossed 300 employees worldwide, has attracted talent to Boulder and built systems enabling it to work efficiently with remote employees, Colluru said.

“For us, the entire world has been our hiring pool,” he added.

And now on to the news ...

Sleep-apnea treatments. Startups are developing new options for obstructive sleep-apnea patients who can’t tolerate continuous positive airway pressure, or CPAP, the gold-standard therapy.

• Somnair, for example, which recently raised $4.3 million in seed financing led by J2 Ventures, is advancing a neurostimulation treatment for the disorder, which affects around a billion people worldwide and occurs as muscles in the upper throat relax too much during sleep, narrowing or blocking the airway.  
   
• Snoring is a common symptom. Others include excessive daytime sleepiness and morning headaches. The disorder can also increase risk for stroke and other diseases.
   
• CPAP delivers mild air pressure through a mask to keep the airway open. Most people can get used to it with enough support. But since not everyone can adjust, most sleep physicians would like to see more options backed by good science, said Dr. Lauren Tobias, associate professor of medicine at Yale University School of Medicine, who isn’t involved with Somnair.

Novo Nordisk said its blockbuster Wegovy weight-loss drug cuts the risk of heart attack, stroke or death by 57% compared with Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound. The Danish pharmaceutical giant said Sunday that the study suggests the heart-protective benefits of semaglutide—the active ingredient in Wegovy—may not be the same for all GLP-1 drugs such as tirzepatide, which is the active ingredient in Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound. The real-world study used evidence gathered from actual patient experiences rather than a controlled trial, it said. Compared with tirzepatide, overweight and obese patients with cardiovascular disease but not diabetes taking a 2.4 milligram dose of Wegovy showed a 57% greater risk reduction for heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular-related death or death from any cause, the company said.

Cybersecurity specialist Ten Eleven Ventures led a $320 million minority investment in IQM Quantum Computers, which values the European quantum computing company above $1 billion. Ten Eleven Ventures’ backing marks IQM’s first U.S. investment and comes at an inflection point for the company as it expands internationally, said Alex Doll, Ten Eleven co-founder and managing general partner who is joining IQM’s board as part of the investment. IQM recently signed up its first U.S. customer, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

• Customers can either buy IQM’s quantum computers or access them through the cloud through a pay-as-you-go model.

People

Genetic medicines startup Aera Therapeutics appointed William Querbes as chief scientific officer. He previously served as senior vice president of therapeutic discovery and translational sciences at Tessera Therapeutics.

Alltrna, a developer of transfer RNA medicines, named David (Dave) Hava as chief scientific officer. He most recently served as entrepreneur-in-residence at Mass General Brigham Ventures.

Healthcare technology investor Flare Capital Partners appointed Alyssa Tsenter as a senior associate.

Deals

Virtual-care and pharmacy platform Remedy Meds agreed to acquire Thirty Madison in an all-stock deal valued at just over $500 million.

Galvanize Therapeutics, a Redwood City, Calif.-based startup developing pulsed electric field therapies for oncology and chronic lung disease, scored $100 million in Series C funding. Sofinnova Partners led the round, which included support from Norwest Venture Partners, Gilmartin Capital and others. Sofinnova Partners’ Antoine Papiernik, Norwest’s Zack Scott and Gilmartin Capital’s David Lewis joined the Galvanize board.

Charm Therapeutics, a U.K.-based biotechnology startup developing precision oncology treatments, closed an $80 million Series B round from investors including New Enterprise Associates, SR One, OrbiMed and Khosla Ventures.

Predoc, a New York-based health information management platform, raised $30 million in seed and Series A funding from investors including Base10 Partners, Northzone and Eniac Ventures.

Lpoxy Therapeutics, a startup developing a novel non-antibiotic therapy to prevent Clostridioides difficile infections, signed a term sheet with 5 Horizons Ventures in support of a $28 million Series A financing.

ArcaScience, a drug development startup, was seeded with a $7 million investment led by The Moon Venture.

NewDays, a Seattle-based developer of a treatment for people living with mild cognitive impairment and dementia, landed $7 million in seed funding from General Catalyst and Madrona Venture Group.

Meroka, a provider of technology and tools to independent physician practices, launched with $6 million in seed funding led by Better Tomorrow Ventures and Slow Ventures.

• The Turmoil Inside MAHA Is About More Than Just Vaccines
   
• More Older Americans Are Aging Alone. Who Will Take Care of Them?
   
• How to Get the New Covid-19 Vaccine
   
• Fiber-Packed Foods Are Hitting Store Shelves. Be Careful, Doctors Say.
   
• My Family Went Off Ultra-Processed Foods for a Month. The Results Surprised Us.

• Big shakeups to the childhood vaccination schedule could be nearing (STAT) 
   
• At CDC, worries mount that agency has taken anti-science turn (KFF Health News)
   
• Startup Corsera Health aims to bring preventive heart medicine to the masses (BioPharma Dive)
   
• Reduced screening may have led to rise in advanced prostate cancer diagnoses (New York Times)

This newsletter was compiled by Matthew Strozier, Zachary Cole and Brian Gormley. 

WSJ Pro Venture Capital is a premium service of The Wall Street Journal. We cover venture capital and the global startup ecosystem. Share your tips, comments and questions: vcnews@wsj.com

The Team: Matthew Strozier, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.

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