July 24, 2019 Comments (0) Views: 1171 Biotech, Biotech Briefing, Blog

Biotech Briefing: Cradle Genomics Raises $17 Million for More Comprehensive Prenatal Tests

Plus: Dawn Barry, President of Luna PBC, talks to PM360

Reports + Research

Cradle Genomics Raises $17 Million for More Comprehensive Prenatal Tests

The $17.1 million Series A financing was led by Illumina Ventures and Section 32 with participation from Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Sea Lane Ventures, Listwin Ventures, and Axon Ventures. Cradle Genomics is looking to analyze circulating fetal DNA as early as week five of a pregnancy. While Cradle Genomics is headquartered in San Diego, it has R&D operations in Detroit, “on the campus of Wayne State University, where the technology Cradle uses was invented,” according to Xconomy.

Q&A with Dawn Barry, President of Luna PBC

Luna PBC (Public Benefit Corporation) was founded with a simple idea: if a person shares their genetic and health information, then she should also share in the value gained from that info. In a Q&A with PM360, Barry discusses why Luna PBC was started, what people can expect from sharing their data, and the biggest challenges in establishing a community-based platform.

NuVasive Launches Integrated Spine Surgery Platform

The Pulse platform includes multiple technologies to improve workflow, reduce variability and increase surgical reproducibility. The overall goal is to help surgeons adopt minimally invasive surgery techniques that can reduce complications and hospital stays compared to open spine surgery. According to a company statement, “The Pulse platform combines neuromonitoring, surgical planning, rod bending, radiation reduction, imaging and navigation functions, with extensible capabilities to enable increased surgical efficiencies in the operating room.”

Read + Listen

POW: Podcast of the Week

Axios discusses Elon Musk’s Neuralink, his brain-computer interface company. Musk recently publicly discussed the company that has goals to help people with brain injuries and then “secure humanity’s future as a civilization relative to AI”