Good day.  Point72 Ventures, the venture investment vehicle funded by billionaire hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen, is creating a new team that will deploy roughly $300 million into health-care startups over the next three years, according to Scott Barclay, who joined the firm to helm the effort.

“Most of healthcare is oligopolistic, broken, of poor experience and even worse decision making,” Mr. Barclay said. Entrepreneurs can help, said Mr. Barclay, who was previously a partner at venture firm Data Collective Venture Capital, where he invested in startups such as urgent-care provider Carbon Health, patient-monitoring software provider Medical Informatics Corp. and liquid biopsy startup Freenome Inc. Before Data Collective, Mr. Barclay was an executive at CVS Health and Surescripts.

Point72 will invest in various types of early-stage health-care startups, he said. It won’t shy away, for example, from backing what Mr. Barclay referred to as “full-stack” startups, those that instead of selling technology to medical practices, would build new practices around their tech, and instead of selling new data streams to insurance companies, would create their own insurance products.

Mr. Barclay is in the process of hiring a team of five to six investors who will deploy about $40 million to $50 million annually into new seed and Series A deals. “We have approved our first investment. We are 100% in business,” he said.

And now on to the news...

SoftBank backing. Biofourmis Inc., which is using artificial intelligence-based analytics to monitor patients affected by Covid-19, has raised a $100 million financing led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 aimed at giving it the clout to compete for wider use of its technologies in the U.S. and abroad, WSJ Pro's Brian Gormley reports.

• SoftBank Group Corp. is well-known for investments in businesses such as ride-hailing company Uber. But the firm also has backed several health-care startups. Through its initial SoftBank Vision Fund, a $100 billion vehicle, SoftBank financed companies such as Guardant Health Inc., leading a $360 million financing for the cancer blood-testing concern in 2017. Guardant went public the following year and now has a market capitalization of around $9 billion.
   
• Through SoftBank Vision Fund 2, the firm has backed life-sciences companies such as privately held Encoded Therapeutics Inc.
   
• Now SoftBank is betting that Boston-based Biofourmis can help tilt health care more toward prevention and help fewer people succumb to Covid-19, the disease the new coronavirus causes, and other illnesses. Biofourmis uses a wearable biosensor to collect information from patients and an AI-based analytics platform called Biovitals to predict when a patient’s condition is about to worsen. This enables health-care professionals to intervene earlier, according to the company.

Promising ALS drug. Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, who took an experimental drug kept the ability to walk, breathe and do other functions about six weeks longer than subjects who took a placebo in a recent trial—the latest sign of progress in finding new treatments for the deadly disease. The motor functioning of ALS patients who got the Amylyx Pharmaceuticals Inc. drug as part of the study declined more slowly than of subjects who didn’t get the drug, the researchers said, in a study published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine.

Funds

India-based 3one4 Capital held the first close of a targeted $100 million early-stage fund. Limited partners include family offices, endowments and foundations, as well as corporate and financial institutional investors. Fund III will continue the firm’s strategy of investing $500,000 to $4 million per deal in 25 to 30 startups across a variety of sectors.

People

Life science investor Novo Holdings A/S bolstered its Principal Investments team with the additions of Abhijeet Lele and Jon Levy as senior partners. Mr. Lele was previously U.S. head of health care at Temasek. Mr. Levy joins the firm from CVC Capital Partners, where he was managing director in the health care team.

Artio Medical Inc., a developer of products for the peripheral vascular, neurovascular and structural heart markets, appointed Paul Muller as chief technology officer and general manager. He previously held the same roles at Flow Forward Medical. Prairie Village, Kan.-based Artio is backed by investors including Serra Ventures.

Exits

Publicly traded CryoLife Inc. acquired fellow aortic repair device company Ascyrus Medical LLC. CryoLife will pay up to $200 million for the Boca Raton, Fla.-based company, consisting of an $80 million upfront payment and up to $120 million in milestone payments. Ascyrus was backed by Harbright Ventures.

Shine Medical Technologies LLC, a Janesville, Wis.-based producer of medical isotopes, raised an $80 million Series C round led by Fidelity Management & Research Co. Bascom Ventures, Castor Ventures and Wisconsin Investment Partners count Shine in their portfolios. Oaktree Capital Management is also a backer.

PasarPolis, an Indonesian insurtech startup, closed a $54 million Series B round of funding from investors including LeapFrog Investments, SBI Investment, AlphaJWC and Intudo Ventures.

Transposit Corp., a San Francisco-based API composition platform, secured $35 million in Series B funding. Altimeter Capital led the investment, which included participation from Sutter Hill Ventures, SignalFire and Unusual Ventures.

Hazel Health, a San Francisco-based provider of telehealth services for kids, secured $33.5 million in Series C funding. Owl Ventures and Bain Capital led the round, which included participation from Uprising Capital, UCSF Foundation Investment Co. and Centene Corp.

Pyramid Biosciences Inc., a Waltham, Mass.-based startup developing new precision therapies focused on the modulation of cell surface receptors, closed a $28 million funding round from Adage Capital Management, Averill Master Fund, J.W. Childs Associates and others.

PicnicHealth, a San Francisco-based startup that gives patients expanded access to their medical records and the ability to contribute to scientific research, raised $25 million in Series B financing. Felicis Ventures led the round, with Managing Director Sundeep Peechu joining the board of directors. 

Legion Technologies Inc., a Redwood City, Calif.-based workforce management provider, snagged $22 million in Series B financing. Stripes led the investment, with participation from Workday Ventures, Dollar General, NTT Docomo Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, First Round Capital, XYZ Ventures and Webb Investment Network. Paul Melchiorre, operating partner at Stripes, will join the board.

Lumen Bioscience Inc., a Seattle-based company currently working on treatments for C. difficile infection, norovirus and traveler’s diarrhea, picked up $16 million in Series B funding. WestRiver Management and Bioeconomy Capital co-led the round, which included contributions from existing investors Avista Development, Columbia Pacific, Lumen’s founders and others.

LUCA Science Inc., a Tokyo-based developer of functional mitochondria as therapeutic agents, collected $9.8 million in Series A financing. Axil Capital Partners led the round, and was joined by Remiges Ventures, Nippon Venture Capital, Fast Track Initiative and CaHC.

Aqua Medical LLC, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based startup developing a gastrointestinal disease treatment, added $8.2 million in Series A3 funding, bringing the Series A round total to $15.5 million. ShangBay Capital led the new tranche, with participation from Ithaka Partners and ForMED Ventures. William Dai, founding managing partner at ShangBay, joined the board.

Carewell, a Charlotte, N.C.-based provider of home health products and educational resources to family caregivers, landed more than $5 million in seed funding from e.ventures, NextView Ventures and Primetime Partners. Mathias Schilling, founding partner at e.ventures, will join the board.

Peer Medical, a peer to peer platform providing cancer treatment information, launched with $1.2 million in seed funding led by Partners in Equity and Seedcamp.

• Trump administration asks states to be ready for vaccine by November.
   
• Covid-19 deaths significantly reduced by use of steroids, analysis says
   
• Covid-19 vaccines: what’s coming and when?
   
• Samsung’s drugmaking future includes a $2 billion ‘super plant’
   
• An Alzheimer’s quest: enrolling more Black people in clinical trials.
   
• Add this to the Covid-19 prevention toolbox: good ventilation.

• What we learned about the business of telemedicine from Amwell and GoodRx’s IPO filings. (Stat News)
   
• Roche to launch 40 million rapid coronavirus antigen tests per month. (Fierce Biotech)
   
• Inovio shares tumble 8% after short seller Muddy Waters says don't believe the Covid-19 vaccine hype. (MarketWatch)
   
• Gilead deal reignites optimism in a cancer biotech. (BioPharma Dive)

The completed deal involving a merger with a blank-check firm values Skillz Inc. at $3.6 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. An item in Top News of Wednesday’s VC Daily newsletter misstated the value as $4.3 billion.

This newsletter was compiled by Marc Vartabedian and Zachary Cole.

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, Tomio Geron, Yuliya Chernova, Brian Gormley and Marc Vartabedian.

Follow us on Twitter: @wsjvc, @tomiogeron, @ychernova, @BrianPGormley, @marcvarta.