Pittsburgh-based personalized medicine company Precision Therapeutics has changed its name to Helomics Corp. – and has brought in an impressive $60 million financing round and hired a new C-suite and board, to boot.
The company’s strategy will be to become highly acquisitive in the personalized medicine space, it said in a statement.
The cancer diagnostics company works in the spaces of cellular analysis, genomics, proteomics and bioinformatics and couples them with tumor profiling and predictive analytics to help docs personalize their treatment regimens. The funding comes from Healthcare Royalty Partners, which is aptly going for a royalty play here.
When Investment Rhymes with Canada
Canada has a proud history of achievement in the areas of science and technology, and the field of biomanufacturing and life sciences is no exception.
Helomics’ flagship product, the ChemoFx Chemoresponse marker is aimed toward treating women with gynecologic cancers. It says:
Recently published studies demonstrate a 14-month improvement in median overall survival when ovarian cancer patients are treated with sensitive therapies as identified by ChemoFx® and show ChemoFx® is predictive of treatment-specific outcome. Since 2010, Precision has recieved more than 50,000 gynecologic cancer patient specimens for ChemoFx® testing from over 1,000 US hospitals
The company hired life sciences vet Neil J. Campbell as its new president and CEO, and Dane Saglio as its CFO.
It’s also appointed six new directors to its board:
- Todd C. Davis, Chairman of the Board (HC Royalty, Elan, Abbott)
- Neil J. Campbell, Director (Abbott, Celera Genomics, Life Technologies, EntreMed, SuperNova Diagnostics)
- Clarke B. Futch, Director (HC Royalty, Thomas Weisel Partners, Raymond James)
- Marc Kozin, Director (L.E.K Consulting)
- D. Stafford O’Kelly, Director (Abbott Molecular Diagnostics)
- Matthew Q. Reber, Director (HC Royalty, Oak Hill Capital Partners, Morgan Stanley)
