BioAdvance Commits $4M To 14 Life Sciences Companies

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--BioAdvance announced that it has added eight new companies to its portfolio and made follow-on investments in six of its existing companies. These investments represent a $4M commitment to the success and growth of life science companies in the mid-Atlantic region.

“The region’s rich innovation pipeline produced tremendous diversity of start-up opportunities across the healthcare sector, which is reflected in the variety of investments BioAdvance made this year,” said Barbara Schilberg, CEO of BioAdvance. “We continue to play a role as the first institutional investor in new companies, but we also are seeing more opportunities to syndicate with other investors in early-stage companies, which is a positive trend.”

During its fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, BioAdvance made the following investments to 12 companies totaling $3.24M:

• Cohero Health (New York, NY) ($600,000) -- as part of a $10.5M Series A financing to transform respiratory disease management through smart mobile technology. www.coherohealth.com/
• Cytovas (Philadelphia, PA) ($50,000) -- to develop an informatics platform to analyze flow cytometry data to identify correlations between extra cellular-vesicle biomarkers and disease. www.cytovas.com/
• Genome Profiling (Newark, DE) ($100,000) -- as part of a $880,000 financing to discover novel epigenetic biomarkers based on its proprietary genome-wide methylation profiling platform to revolutionize the way to treat, diagnose, and predict chronic and life-threatening disease. www.genprollc.com/
• Immunome (Philadelphia, PA) ($200,000) -- as part of a $15M Series A financing to establish high throughput screening and validation of novel monoclonal antibody-target pairs in oncology. www.immunome.com/
• Jenrin Discovery (Chadds Ford, Pa) ($60,000) -- to progress its lead compound for diabetes, obesity and NASH to an IND filing. www.jenrindiscovery.com/
• Keriton (Philadelphia, PA) ($500,000) -- as part of a $1M financing to develop a breast milk management system for neonatal ICUs, to improve staff productivity and outcomes for infants. www.keriton.com/
• Mebias Discovery (Philadelphia, PA) ($850,000) -- to develop a biased mu opioid agonist to treat pain without the debilitating side effects and addiction potential of traditional opioids. http://mebiasdiscovery.com/
• Olive Devices (Philadelphia, PA) ($50,000) --to develop smart technologies that improve communication and personalized education for the hearing impaired.
• Palvella Therapeutics (Wayne, PA) ($500,000) -- as part of a $2.5M financing to conduct clinical studies on a novel, disease-modifying therapy to treat pachyonychia congenita, an ultra-orphan, chronically debilitating genetic disease for which no treatments currently exist. www.palvellatherapeutics.com/
• Pillo Health (New York, NY) ($250,000) -- as part of a $1.5M financing to develop an interactive home health care hub that includes medication dispensing. https://pillohealth.com/
• Ride Health (Philadelphia, PA) ($50,000) -- to develop a SaaS product platform enabling healthcare providers to schedule, request and pay for rides on behalf of patients to and from medical appointments. www.ride-health.com/
• WellTrackONE (New York, NY) ($25,000) -- as part of a $200,000 financing to expand its Annual Wellness Visit program by integrating the Theo product attained in the 2016 acquisition of NobleMD, another portfolio company of BioAdvance. https://www.welltrackone.com/

In July 2017, BioAdvance began its new fiscal year by making two additional investments, as follows:

• VenatoRx (Wayne, PA) ($250,000) -- as part of a $42M Series B round led by Versant Ventures, Abingworth, and Foresight Ventures. http://www.venatorx.com/
• TalexMedical (Philadelphia, PA) ($500,000) -- to support manufacturing and launch of a device invented at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for pediatricians to use to correct deformities of infant’s ears.

BioAdvance is a $50M early stage life sciences fund, working with entrepreneurs in the mid-Atlantic region to build strong companies that have the potential to improve human health. Since making its first investments in 2003, BioAdvance has committed $35.7M in funding to 80 organizations developing over 80 products in the diagnostics, therapeutic, medtech, research tools and digital health sectors. BioAdvance portfolio companies have leveraged $2.65 billion in subsequent capital, including proceeds from twelve acquisitions. Eleven products have received FDA approval. For more information please visit www.bioadvance.com.