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We at NuFund Venture Group are excited to announce our recent investment in Papillon Therapeutics a clinical-stage biotechnology company heralding a new era in genetic medicine for multi-systemic diseases. 🌍💉 🔬 Why Invest? Papillon, originating from the innovative ecosystem of UC San Diego, showcases groundbreaking approaches in the treatment of severe genetic disorders. Their use of gene-modified hematopoietic stem cells to potentially reverse disease symptoms across various organs not only challenges existing medical paradigms but provides a strong investment thesis to back transformative science. 🧬 •Papillon’s innovative technology addresses critical unmet needs that could significantly enhance quality of life and longevity for patients suffering from debilitating genetic disorders. •The early validations set a precedent for what the technology can achieve. •The potential for high-impact outcomes makes Papillon a perfect example of the type of company we aim to support. 🛡️ NuFund Deal Team for Papillon Therapeutics: • Meredith Fidler Ph.D., lead the deal for the NuFund Venture Group team with her extensive background in gene therapy and clinical science, making her uniquely qualified to spearhead this initiative. • Jeffrey Friedman and Robert Hess bring critical expertise in early-stage biotech development and intellectual property strategy, respectively. Their contributions have helped shape our investment framework, ensuring that we support ventures with robust scientific and commercial prospects. • Adam Pavlicek and Dean Gesme were instrumental in evaluating the scientific nuances and the strategic fit of Papillon within our portfolio. 💡 NuFund’s Unique Early Investor Approach: At NuFund, we pride ourselves on not just funding, but fostering innovation. Our unique approach as early-stage investors involves: • Deep Domain Expertise: Our team’s profound technical knowledge and industry experience empower us to discern and nurture potential breakthroughs. • Founder-Fair Support: We provide more than capital. Our hands-on guidance helps startups navigate the treacherous waters of biotech innovation, ensuring they are investment-ready. • Strategic Network: We leverage our extensive network within the San Diego ecosystem and beyond to provide startups like Papillon with the resources they need to succeed. 🌐 Follow NuFund Venture Group on LinkedIn to stay updated on how our partnerships are making a difference for the founders of innovative high growth early stage startups nationwide. Explore more about our innovative approach and why top-tier startups choose NuFund Venture Group at www.NuFund.com #SeedFunding #VentureCapital #DigitalHealth #EarlyInvestor #GeneticMedicine #Medtech #UCSD #SanDiegoStartup https://lnkd.in/gfgU9Dvj

Asset-based biotechs—those that are developing more traditional assets for specific indications—accounted for the remaining third of VC funding in 2022. McKinsey analysis grouped asset-based companies according to their primary therapeutic area of focus or that of the lead asset. In 2022, immunology stood out as a clear area of heightened interest, capturing 23 percent of total asset-based company funding—a significant jump from previous years . Several immunology asset-based companies raised rounds of more than $100 million in 2022. This trend toward immunology aligns with the growing interest in regenerative cell therapies noted earlier, with most of those efforts focused on reversing immune drivers of disease. In 2022, VC funding supported a spectrum of immunology assets, ranging from companies focused on new therapeutic targets such as components of the inflammasome to those that offer improvements in tissue specificity and treatment administration of established targets such as IL-17 and TNF-alpha. https://lnkd.in/da_eswGN

Thanks for sharing this article Russ! So many innovative companies on the list. The future looks bright for the life sciences. #startup #innovation #phase 1 #commercialization

From Cambridge, UK to Boston, USA. It’s been a whirlwind few months here at OmicsChart HQ. Our founders have been hard at work forging collaborations with partners at world-leading centres of drug discovery. We have proudly joined the affiliate network at the Milner Therapeutics Institute, which is already fostering fruitful collaborations between the Cambridge University ecosystem and industry partners. Next, we successfully completed the pharma-focused accelerator, PharmStars, in Boston, USA. This culminated in a showcase event where we presented our multi-omics solution to the top 10 pharma companies. We remain committed to driving innovation in cancer research by making data more accessible and digestible, empowering decisions in translational oncology. Onwards and upwards to our next adventure! ✉ parterships@omicschart.com #scRNAseq #multiomics #transcriptomics #genomics #omics #proteomics #metabolomics #RNAseq #oncology #CancerResearch #PrecisionOncology #oncologyresearch #cancerbiology #translationalbiology #translationaloncology #immunooncology #BiomarkerDiscovery #DrugDiscovery #PrecisionMedicine #targetdiscovery #rwd #realworlddata #rwe #clinicaltrials #bioinformatics #computationalbiology #biotech #startup #techbio #healthtech https://lnkd.in/ebaadxZP

🚀 Exciting news! DeepCure, a pioneer in AI-driven small molecule therapeutics, has secured $24.6M in Series A-1 funding led by IAG Capital Partners. 🌟 This investment will propel advancements in immunology, inflammation, and automation capabilities for drug discovery. 💼 With participation from existing investors, DeepCure has now raised over $72M. Read more: [Link to full article] https://lnkd.in/dFTd2sGW #DeepCure #AI #DrugDiscovery 🧪🔬

As the year wraps up, biotech dominates the week's top 10 announced funding rounds in the US, including: Tome Biosciences: Secured a massive $213M in a Series A and B funding round, unveiling groundbreaking "molecular surgery" technology for gene therapies. Bicara Therapeutics: A familiar face on the list, this Boston-based biotech raised $165M in a Series C round, focusing on developing biologics to combat tumors, with clinical trials already underway for a head and neck cancer treatment. Totus Medicines: Another biotech player, Totus Medicines from California, closed a $66M Series B financing, specialising in small molecule drug discovery and development using covalent libraries and AI tools. Here's to a big 2024 for biotech ⚕ https://lnkd.in/eJUHH2Ev

#Austrian #biotech startup #HeartBeatbio raises € 4.5 million pre-series A round funding. Invest AG, aws Gründungsfonds II, and Tensor Ventures. The financing enables the completion of a ready-to-use, fully integrated, #automated, high-throughput Cardioid Drug #Discovery Platform for proprietary and #collaborative drug discovery programs in indications with a high medical need such as drug-induced and genetic #cardiomyopathies as well as #myocardial #infarction and fibrosis. HeartBeat.bio is building the #worldwide first high-throughput human organoid #cultivation, screening and AI-supported data analysis solution for developing first-in-class drugs to treat heart failure; faster, less #expensively and with a higher #probability of success in clinical trials. HeartBeat.bio AG Invest AG aws Gründungsfonds Tensor Ventures Michael Krebs Tomas Marsalek To share your startup story write us on - contact@startuprise.co.uk #heartbeatbio #funding #eustartup

Exciting news in the longevity space! Rejuvenation Technologies Inc., a biotechnology company, announced yesterday a $10.6M seed financing round led by Khosla Ventures. Shanda Ventures, Asymmetry Ventures, Merchant Adventures, Longevitytech.fund, and Y Combinator also participated in the round. The company has also raised $4.6M in grant funding, bringing the total amount raised to $15.2M. Rejuvenation’s co-founders John Ramunas, PhD, CEO, and Glenn Markov, PhD, COO, have worked together for over 12 years, including at Stanford University where they completed their PhDs in the lab of Helen Blau on telomere extension and epigenetic reprogramming. Dan Chambers, thoracic transplant physician and lung fibrosis disease expert from The University of Queensland, will join the company as Chief Medical Officer.   The key role of telomeres and telomerase in cellular aging was recognized with the 2009 Nobel Prize. “There is an immense public interest in aging and in #mRNA due to mRNA-based COVID” vaccines, said Alexander A. Morgan, MD PhD, Partner, Khosla Ventures. Rejuvenation Technologies Inc. is working on developing mRNA-based therapies to address the mechanisms of #aging. Their primary focus is on reversing a key aging mechanism known as #telomere shortening. Telomeres are like biological clocks that shorten as we age, contributing to age-related diseases. Rejuvenation's lead candidate involves delivering optimized telomerase mRNA encapsulated in targeted lipid nanoparticles to reverse telomere shortening in the body. This work is essential because telomere shortening is a fundamental hallmark of aging and plays a role in various age-related problems, including chronic DNA damage, reduced mitochondrial function, cellular senescence, and more. Rejuvenation's technology has shown promise in preclinical models for conditions like liver fibrosis and lung failure, and they believe it could have a broad impact on aging-related diseases. Crucially, their method is made to work quickly, not stay in your body for too long, and be gentle on your immune system, so it doesn't cause problems like making your cells immortal or triggering strong immune reactions. https://lnkd.in/gNQU4s58 #longevity #healthspan #biotechnology #rejuvenation #startup

Introducing Arin Ghasparian, CEO of grow member company Shape Biopharmaceuticals: Learn more about how he wants to transform immunotherapy in this interview with Venturelab

Congrats to Andrei Georgescu, Ph.D. and the Vivodyne team on closing a $38M seed round led by Khosla Ventures to develop lab-grown human organs, with participation from Kairos Ventures, CS Ventures, MBX Capital, and Bison Ventures. 🔥🔥🔥 “We’re thrilled to have Khosla Ventures lead this funding round, which accelerates the development of our AI platform that enables the generation of predictive human data before therapeutics enter clinical trials,” said Andrei Georgescu, CEO and Co-Founder of Vivodyne. “By combining the principles of organoids and organs-on-chips, we’ve created a new class of lifelike, lab-grown human organs. We use these lab-grown human test subjects to discover and develop new therapies for human diseases. The result is huge amounts of complex human data—larger than you could get from any clinical trial—and we train multimodal models on this data to predict and improve the safety and efficacy of new drugs. This breakthrough not only enhances the predictive accuracy of AI in drug development, but also promises to significantly improve the success rates of AI-generated drugs, setting a new standard in the field.” “By testing drugs and life-saving biologics directly on these realistic human tissues at an unprecedented scale and resolution, we can improve the success rates of therapeutics entering clinical trials,” said Alexander A. Morgan, MD PhD, Partner at Khosla Ventures. “Vivodyne’s technology bridges the gap between preclinical R&D and human clinical trials, while automating every step of the testing pipeline, from growing tissues, dosing, sampling and imaging, to analyzing data. The ability to screen and develop new potential lifesaving therapies, testing thousands at a time on functionally realistic human tissues on Vivodyne’s automated platform, is a major step forward for the pharmaceutical industry.” Read the full release: 👇👇👇 https://lnkd.in/e3TkTTgb #AI #drugdevelopment