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Knownwell Helps Patients Navigate Obesity Insurance Coverage
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By Brian Gormley, WSJ Pro
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Good day. Knownwell, a Boston-based provider of primary-care and metabolic-health services to people who are overweight or obese, is expanding in the U.S. as it navigates insurance challenges in various geographic markets.
Knownwell, which says it offers comprehensive, non-stigmatizing care, raised seed financing in 2022 and the following year opened its first clinic in the Needham suburb of Boston.
Knownwell, a provider of in-person and virtual services to Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island patients, chose its initial market intentionally: Insurance coverage for obesity care in the area is strong, said co-founder and Chief Executive Brooke Boyarsky Pratt.
Starting in New England helped Knownwell pressure-test its model. If it failed to draw patients, it would realize the problem wasn’t insurance barriers.
Knownwell moved into another market last year, establishing a clinic in the Plano suburb of Dallas. With the area’s population growing quickly, demand for medical care is robust, yet insurance coverage for obesity treatment isn’t, Pratt said.
Knownwell, whose investors include Flare Capital Partners and Andreessen Horowitz, educates patients about their insurance coverage, Pratt said.
It has found that some patients, for example, have coverage for new, branded GLP-1 weight-loss medications but don’t realize it. As a result, they pay out of pocket for compounded versions of these drugs, Pratt said.
“I’m glad we’re able to intervene in those cases,” she added.
Knownwell’s latest move is to Illinois, where it has just set up six Chicago-area locations. Insurance coverage in this area isn’t as comprehensive as it is in New England but it is better than in Dallas, making it an in-between market, Pratt said.
And now on to the news...
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Justpoint’s co-founder, president and chief technology officer, Oleksandr “Sashko” Zakharchuk (left), with co-founder and CEO Victor Bornstein. Justpoint is one of several startups raising venture capital recently to apply AI to the legal sector. PHOTO: DUSTIN SIMANTOB
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Pharmaceutical lawsuits. A startup with expertise in artificial intelligence, pharmaceuticals and the legal system has raised venture capital to identify drugs that could be the basis for product-liability lawsuits.
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Justpoint, which calls itself a consumer-protection company, has raised $45 million in Series A financing, plus a $50 million line of credit, to build a business that uses artificial intelligence and scientists to scour medical records to find drugs, chemicals and consumer products that it believes have harmed patients or consumers.
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The Boulder, Colo.-based company then plans to provide that information to customer Justpoint PLLC, an independent, Arizona-based law firm that licenses Justpoint’s technology, name, website and services. Justpoint PLLC could then sue the makers of these products, with Justpoint Inc. keeping a portion of the gains from successful cases.
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The model raises questions about the potential for increased litigation to drive healthcare costs upward. Justpoint investors said the medical system bears the cost of treating patients who have been exposed to harmful drugs and chemicals and that the startup can improve outcomes by spotting dangerous substances sooner.
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$3.08 Billion
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The total amount that Novartis could pay to acquire Anthos Therapeutics from Blackstone Life Sciences.
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Novartis to Buy Anthos Therapeutics for Up to $3.1 Billion
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Novartis agreed to acquire Blackstone Life Sciences’ Anthos Therapeutics for up to $3.08 billion to boost its cardiovascular-drug pipeline, The Wall Street Journal reports. The deal means the Swiss pharmaceutical company retakes control over a treatment candidate for blood clots it licensed to Anthos when the Boston-based firm was launched in 2019. Privately held Anthos was formed by Blackstone Life Sciences and Novartis and it developed the drug, known as abelacimab, to reach late-stage clinical trials under a license from Novartis. Novartis will pay $925 million upfront for Anthos and make additional payments of up to $2.15 billion upon achievement of specified
regulatory and sales milestones.
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Pharma Turns to AI to Speed Up Drug Development, Hits Hurdles
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When Genentech licensed experimental drug vixarelimab from Kiniksa Pharmaceuticals, its scientists thought they had a future lung medicine in their hands. Artificial intelligence came up with another plan, WSJ reports. It was an AI platform that led Genentech–a U.S.-based biotechnology unit of Switzerland’s Roche–to discover that the drug candidate it had licensed for its potential to target a lung condition could also work to treat inflammatory bowel disease. “It’s like, in some way, searching for a needle in a haystack,” said Aviv Regev, Genentech’s executive vice president for research and early development. “We did it
based on data and algorithms. We didn’t do it based on ‘now we go back to the lab and we do large-scale experiments and we use these experiments in order to understand the biology.’” Executives and industry experts caution that AI adoption is still at an early stage and that it will take time, possibly years, before its potential is achieved.
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Funds
Healthcare technology-focused Nina Capital held the first close of its €50 million third fund, which will invest across Europe, North America, Israel and Australia. To date, the new vehicle has backed Sonar Mental Health, a mental health platform serving school districts.
Prebys Foundation has launched the Prebys Ventures Impact Fund, a $50 million vehicle that will focus on the tech and life sciences sectors in the San Diego area.
People
Aurion Biotech, a startup focusing on developing treatments for diseases of the eye, appointed Donald Munoz as chief financial officer. He was previously CFO at NuCana.
Digital healthcare startup Solera Health named Matthew Shilts as chief technology officer, Michael J. Levin as general counsel and chief information security officer, Kris Heinzen as chief product officer, and Lenny Skelton as chief sales officer.
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Abcuro, a Newton, Mass.-based clinical-stage biotechnology startup developing immunotherapies for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and cancer, closed a $200 million Series C round led by New Enterprise Associates.
Candid Health, a San Francisco-based revenue cycle automation platform for healthcare providers, scored $52.5 million in Series C funding led by Oak HC/FT.
Epicore Biosystems, a Cambridge, Mass.-based startup developing sweat-sensing wearables that provide real-time personalized health insights, secured $26 million in Series B financing led by the Steele Foundation for Hope.
Keragon, a healthcare automation platform, raised $7.5 million in seed funding led by Upfront Ventures.
Cerula Care, a West Hartford, Conn.-based oncology behavioral health and care navigation startup, was seeded with a $3.7 million investment led by Esplanade Ventures.
Coral, a Montreal-based women’s digital health startup, was seeded with a 4.1 million Canadian dollar investment led by Brightspark Ventures.
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Despite bird flu being found in dairy cows, people are still safe to eat cooked eggs and poultry and drink pasteurized milk, researchers say. PHOTO: CHARLIE NEIBERGALL/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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