It took Kandaswamy (Swamy) Vijayan, CEO of newly launched Plexium Inc., a few years to figure out where he needed to focus his creative energies. With an engineering background, he helped develop diagnostic tools. But he wanted to take the skill further. "For longest time, I thought diagnostics were the be all and end all," Vijayan told BioWorld MedTech.

Med-tech firms raising money in public or private financings.

DUBLIN – Sofinnova Partners closed its ninth early stage venture capital fund, Sofinnova Capital IX, at €333 million (US$369 million) and is bringing the same playbook to bear on current investment opportunities that it has followed in the recent past.

Aztherapies Inc., of Boston, said it closed a $26.3 million series C preferred equity financing co-led by Spinnaker Capital and Cosine, with participation from new and existing investors, including Drads Capital, IBS Capital and Wexford Capital.

It was at the constantly changing intersection of data science that Arsenal Biosciences Inc.'s CEO, Ken Drazan, found himself as he helped bring the company to life and to its $85 million series A fundraising.

PARIS – Incepto Medical SAS, of Paris, raised $6.2 million from three French venture capital funds – Axa Venture Partners, Bpifrance through its Patient Autonome Fund, and Cap Decisif – to develop its artificial intelligence (AI) medical imaging platform. "This funding round is a first step toward accelerating [the] rollout of our [AI] medical imaging solutions on a grand scale throughout France," Incepto CEO Antoine Jomier told BioWorld MedTech.

DUBLIN – Amarna Therapeutics BV raised €10 million (US$11.1 million) in new financing to move its SV40-based gene therapy platform, SVac, toward the clinic.

TORONTO – A total of $1.4 million in capital funding from 12 U.S., Canadian and European angel investors will help Toronto-based Cohesys Inc. complete preclinical animal studies, with an eye toward gaining approval for its nontoxic, adhesive tape for rebuilding facial bones.

HONG KONG – Upin & Co. Ltd., a fund and asset management company headquartered in London, plans to invest a total of KRW2 trillion (US$1.7 billion) over three years in the South Korean biopharma industry.

HONG KONG – Kobiolabs Inc., a microbiome-based venture from Seoul, South Korea, has secured a KRW26.6 billion (US$22.2 million) investment. Founded in 2014, the venture has achieved KRW193 billion of enterprise value.