GV, Bain Lead $100 Million Infusion for Health-Data Startup Verana Health
Verana Health, a technology company that is curating and analyzing real-world clinical data to advance patient care, announced the close of a $100 million investment led by GV, the venture capital arm of Alphabet, Inc.
New investors Bain Capital Ventures, Casdin Capital, and Define Ventures also participated in the round along with the company’s existing slate of investors.
Verana’s platform aggregates regulatory-grade datasets through its partnership with two of the largest clinical databases in medicine, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) IRIS Registry, and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Axon Registry. The company curates and analyzes this de-identified EHR-derived data to advance medical research and patient care in the areas of ophthalmic and neurologic diseases. Verana plans to expand into additional therapeutic categories over the next year as well as integrate imaging, genomic, and claims data sources.
Pharmaceutical companies are betting that large-scale information about patient health will power better odds when it comes to developing drugs. They’re also turning to data to reinvent the process of testing drugs, and to more precisely target patients with rare diseases.
Verana Health also today announced that it has acquired the technology assets and team behind PYA Analytics (PYAA). Based in Knoxville, TN, PYAA specializes in large-scale data architecture solutions. Members of PYAA have led projects that include the linking of clinical records with images to improve early detection, the utilization of satellite images with other data sources to inform geospatial analysis, and early members of the Human Genome Project.