New York City-based Cota, an oncology-focused startup that relies on real-world evidence to deliver precision medicine, has completed a $40 million Series C financing round led by IQVIA.
Other participants included EW Healthcare Partners, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Boston Millennia Partners, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Hackensack Meridian Health and Atoc Holdings.
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“We see [IQVIA] as a tremendous new partner, in that they not only helped us feel out the funding needs of the company but strategically they’re a leader in healthcare information as well as in the CRO world,” Cota CFO Tom Gallucci said in a phone interview.
IQVIA — the company created by the merger of IMS Health and Quintiles — will also gain a seat on Cota’s board of directors.
The funding will go toward advancing the startup’s Cota Nodal Address (CNA) system, a classification system that puts patients in different categories based on their attributes, disease and potential therapy options.
“The idea [of the CNA] is to group patients that are virtually identical to one another,” Gallucci said. “When you group them, you can get a very clear picture of adverse patterns in care. By eliminating variation, you can drive better outcomes.”
The $40 million funding will also go to help Cota scale its solutions across payers, providers and life sciences companies.
Last November, the startup partnered with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on an initiative aimed at precision oncology research and treatment. Through it, MSK gives Cota anonymized clinical data, which the startup runs through its CNA system. MSK can then use the resulting datasets to improve patient care and accelerate research efforts.
In 2016, the New York City company raised $18 million in a growth equity round. It also closed a $3.7 million tranche from Horizon Healthcare Services in 2014.
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