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Harbinger Health's Cancer Blood Testing Gets $140 Million Boost
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By Brian Gormley, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Harbinger Health has raised $140 million in new venture capital to develop blood tests for cancer, as investor interest remains strong in companies with technologies that could lead to earlier diagnoses.
Earlier cancer detection promises to make cancer more treatable. Harbinger, which has raised a total of about $190 million since its launch by Flagship Pioneering in 2020, is part of a cast of blood-testing startups pursuing that goal. Others include Delfi Diagnostics, which raised a $225 million Series B financing in 2022.
Instead of creating a single blood test, Cambridge, Mass.-based Harbinger is taking a two-tiered approach. The company envisions an initial test that would screen for cancer in the general population.
The goal is for this test to have high negative predictive value—meaning a negative result reliably indicates someone doesn’t have cancer, said Dr. Stephen Hahn, chief executive of Harbinger and former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
For people who don’t test negative, Harbinger would offer a second test. This one would have high positive predictive value, meaning it reliably detects the disease. Both tests would be for cancer screening, meaning additional testing would be needed to confirm a diagnosis.
Harbinger plans to use the $140 million in new financing to complete a clinical trial of some 10,000 participants. It aims to commercialize its tests in 2025.
“Our vision is: screening for cancer will reduce or eliminate the fear of cancer, very similar to screening for cardiovascular risk factors,” Hahn added.
And now on to the news...
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FemHealth Ventures Managing Partner Maneesha Ghiya says the firm expects to invest the fund in about 20 companies. PHOTO: JOY YAGID
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New fund. FemHealth Ventures, which invests in companies focused on women’s health, has closed a $32 million debut fund despite a difficult fundraising environment for new venture firms.
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FemHealth sought to raise up to $50 million for an initial fund and held a first closing of more than $10 million in October 2021. The firm had more than $50 million lined up in verbal commitments in August of 2022, but the stock-market slide late last year caused several investors to pull back, according to Managing Partner Maneesha Ghiya.
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FemHealth had aimed to close the fund in October 2022, but extended its fundraising for six months. Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse in early March further disrupted its fundraising, but the firm still beat its $25 million goal for the fund, which closed in April.
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Venture investment in women’s health has grown in recent years as more entrepreneurs enter the sector and investors recognize opportunities in areas such as maternal health.
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$498 Million
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The amount of venture capital U.S. and European women’s health startups raised in the first half of this year, according to Silicon Valley Bank.
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Private Equity-Owned Health Companies to Join in $3 Billion Merger
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Private-equity firms New Mountain Capital and Marlin Equity Partners plan to merge two companies they own in a bid to create an all-in-one technology platform for employers and patients to manage their healthcare plans, WSJ Pro Private Equity reports.
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New Mountain-backed HealthComp, a health-plan administrator, and Marlin-backed Virgin Pulse, which operates a digital-wellness platform, plan to combine through a $3 billion transaction.
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New Mountain, a New York buyout firm that manages more than $45 billion, will be the majority owner of the combined business, while Marlin will roll over a portion of its stake in Virgin Pulse to retain a minority position.
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Top Agriculture Company Corteva Accuses Startup of Stealing Seeds
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One of the world’s biggest agriculture companies is accusing a startup of scheming to steal high-tech crop seeds, The Wall Street Journal reports. Corteva, the agriculture behemoth spun out of DowDuPont in 2019, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court in Delaware, accusing the seed-gene-editing company Inari Agriculture of illicitly obtaining Corteva seeds from a U.S. depository and illegally shipping them to Europe. Corteva alleges the startup made small changes to the plants’ genetics and now is seeking to patent the seeds in the U.S.
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The Fall of What Was India’s Most Valuable Startup
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An Indian math teacher turned a test-prep service into India’s largest startup, valued at $22 billion, WSJ reports. Now that educational company is learning some hard lessons of its own. The company, Byju’s, has lost more than 75% of its value over the past year amid allegations of financial mismanagement and the resignations of its auditor and three board members, including a representative from Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropic organization, an early investor in the company.
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A Futuristic Plan to Make Steel With Nuclear Fusion
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America’s largest steel company is betting nuclear fusion can help it eliminate carbon emissions and power one of the world’s most energy-intensive manufacturing processes, WSJ reports. In a first-of-its-kind partnership between a major industrial company and a fusion startup, Nucor and Helion Energy plan to develop a 500-megawatt fusion power plant that would be placed at one of Nucor’s U.S. steel mills by 2030, the companies said.
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People
Growth-stage investor BAM Elevate added Kristin Baker Spohn as a general partner. She was most recently general partner at CRV.
TripleBlind, an AI privacy platform for healthcare systems and enterprises, appointed Prat Moghe as chief executive officer. He was previously an executive vice president at Cloudera.
hC Bioscience, a developer of tRNA-based therapeutics targeting protein dysfunction, appointed Jose Lora as chief scientific officer. He was previously CSO at Intergalactic Therapeutics and at enGene.
Drug discovery and development startup ProFound Therapeutics named Klaus Urbahns to the post of chief scientific officer. He joins the company after 13 years at Merck.
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Avalyn Pharma, a Seattle-based developer of targeted inhalation therapies for life-threatening pulmonary diseases, closed a $175 million Series C round from investors including Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund II.
Evozyne, a Chicago-based generative AI-powered drug discovery platform, obtained $81 million in Series B financing from OrbiMed and others.
Adela, a Foster City, Calif.-based developer of technology to accelerate the diagnosis and improve the management of cancer through blood tests, raised $48 million in funding from investors including F-Prime Capital and OrbiMed.
Acesion Pharma, a Copenhagen-based startup developing novel therapies for atrial fibrillation, secured €45 million in Series B financing co-led by Canaan and Alpha Wave Global.
BioProtect, an Israel-based startup whose implantable balloon provides rectal protection during prostate cancer radiation therapy, picked up a $28 million investment. MVM Partners led the round, with Partner Kevin Cheng joining the company’s board.
Midi Health, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based provider of women’s midlife healthcare services, completed a $25 million Series A round led by GV.
CellFE, an Alameda, Calif.-headquartered startup developing a microfluidics-based cell engineering platform, landed $22 million in Series A funding led by M Ventures.
Cartwheel, a Cambridge, Mass.-based provider of rapid access to mental healthcare for students, scored $20 million in Series A funding led by Menlo Ventures.
Evvy, a New York-based vaginal healthcare platform, closed a $14 million Series A round led by Left Lane Capital.
Lucid Scientific, an Atlanta-based developer of systems for real-time cellular analysis, grabbed $7 million in Series A funding. IAG Capital Partners led the round, with Partner Ehsan Jabbarzadeh joining the board.
Savoy Life, a McLean, Va.-based virtual care platform for seniors and adults with disabilities living in residential community care facilities, landed $3 million in pre-seed funding from Red Cell Partners.
Scentian Bio, a New Zealand-based provider of smell and taste digitization technology for the food and health industries, was seeded with a $2.1 million investment led by Finistere Ventures and Toyota Ventures. Dean Tilyard of Finistere Ventures will join the board.
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Christina Eaton, who gave birth at the Burdett Birth Center in Troy, N.Y., is pushing to halt the planned closure. PHOTO: CINDY SCHULTZ FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
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Researchers develop a potential ‘universal’ CAR T-cell therapy for blood cancers (National Cancer Institute)
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As Covid infections rise, nursing homes are still waiting for vaccines (New York Times)
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Inside Bavarian Nordic’s late-stage stumbles — and drive to become a vaccine giant (BioPharma Dive)
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What happens to health programs if the federal government shuts down? (KFF Health News)
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The ethics of abortion care advocacy (New England Journal of Medicine)
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