NCBiotech-funded Companies Raise $11 Million in Latest Quarter

By Barry Teater, NCBiotech Writer

Seventeen bioscience companies that previously received funding from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center raised nearly $11 million in follow-on funding from other sources in the second quarter of the 2016-17 fiscal year that ended Dec. 31.

Leading the way was Lucerno Dynamics, which raised the final $2.8 million of a $6.3 million Series A funding round. Lucerno, based in Morrisville, is developing noninvasive sensor technology that can help show the effectiveness of cancer treatments on tumors.

InnAVasc Medical of Durham raised $2.1 million in venture capital to support its development of better grafts for hemodialysis.

Two other NCBiotech portfolio companies acquired debt financing in the seven digits: Advanced Animal Diagnostics of Morrisville raised $1.5 million, and Civatech Oncology of Durham raised just over $1 million.

A dozen other portfolio companies collectively received $745,000 from the state’s One North Carolina Small Business Program. The program provides grants to match federal funds awarded through the highly competitive Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs, which help companies develop new and innovative technologies that have high potential for commercialization.

Another NCBiotech portfolio company, Target PharmaSolutions of Chapel Hill, announced two new collaborations with Bristol-Myers Squibb to advance the understanding of treatment patterns in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Target is a clinical data company that provides pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners access to disease-state registries that are linked to a biorepository and patient-reported outcomes, providing unique data and insights compared to typical patient registries.

See the accompanying story for an overview of NCBiotech loans and grants awarded during the past quarter.