More than a dozen robotics researchers expressed the need for robots to play a greater role in managing the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, as well as in future preparedness. They pointed to three broad medical areas where robots can make a difference: clinical care with applications such as telemedicine and decontamination; logistics for delivery and handling of medical waste; and reconnaissance such as quarantine enforcement.
Privately held Recode Therapeutics Inc. brought in $80 million through an oversubscribed series A financing with plans to continue its preclinical work in primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) and cystic fibrosis (CF).
Regenacy Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Waltham, Mass., closed on a $30 million series A financing designed to initiate a phase II proof-of-concept trial for ricolinostat, an oral, selective histone deacetylase (HDAC) 6 inhibitor, in diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
Redpin Therapeutics Inc., of New York, plans to take its newly secured $15.5 million series A financing to continue developing its ion-channel based chemogenetics platform for addressing neural circuit dysfunctions such as epilepsy, neuropathic pain and Parkinson’s disease.
Design Therapeutics Inc., a San Diego startup developing new therapies for degenerative disorders caused by nucleotide repeat expansions, has raised $45 million in series A financing.
DUBLIN – The middle of a pandemic may not be the optimal time to launch an oncology-focused company, but Klosterneuburg, Austria-based Oncoone Research & Development GmbH unveiled a €13 million (US$14.1 million) series A round Wednesday, March 18, and laid out plans to develop several different approaches to targeting an immunologically distinct form of a ubiquitous inflammatory cytokine, which is unique to cancer cells and which is associated with a poor prognosis.
Cambridge, Mass., startup Enclear Therapies Inc. has secured $10 million in series A financing led by 20/20 Healthcare Partners. The company is developing a device to aid in treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other neurodegenerative diseases by removing toxic proteins from cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).
San Francisco-based startup Cloudcath has raised a $12 million series A round to support commercialization of its first product that enables remote, real-time monitoring for at-home peritoneal dialysis patients. The expectation is that the notifications it offers to health care providers will enable earlier intervention to avoid complications, including infection. The Cloudcath system is pending U.S. FDA clearance.
DUBLIN – Azafaros BV raised €25 million (US$27.5 million) to develop orally available azasugar drugs with potential application to multiple lysosomal storage diseases.
With an eye toward expanding the reach of its Febridx rapid point-of-care (POC) test, Lumos Diagnostics Holdings Pty. Ltd. has seen the closing of a $15 million series A round from Australia’s Planet Innovation. The funds will back a U.S. FDA pivotal clinical trial, as well as additional development and manufacturing resources for the company’s expanding full-service POC business.