Let’s catch up with the latest life sciences news in San Diego.
— Cybersecurity company MedCrypt, which makes software to protect medical devices, raised a $5.3 million Series A funding round.
The company says it will use the new funds to hire new salespeople and engineers and further develop its technology, which medical devices vendors use to secure data traveling between or stored on devices. It also offers real-time monitoring and alerts about potential security threats.
“Patient data privacy has long been a concern, but the healthcare industry is just beginning to address patient safety risks presented by internet-connected healthcare technology,” said MedCrypt’s vice president of operations, Vidya Murthy, in a prepared statement.
The round was led by Section 32, which is based near San Diego. Eniac Ventures and Y Combinator, the accelerator program that MedCrypt went through this winter, also invested. MedCrypt has raised $8.4 million in total.
— LunaPBC, the parent company of genomic and health data platform LunaDNA, added $4.6 million in outside funding to its coffers.
La Jolla, CA-based LunaDNA said in December that the SEC had OK’d its plan to give equity to people who share with the company their health data, such as DNA files from 23andMe and AncestryDNA. The startup, which has raised $7.6 million since its launch, plans to use the fresh cash to accelerate research partnerships, further develop its platform, and add to its marketing team. It will also go toward the integration of Genetic Alliance’s Platform for Engaging Everyone Responsibly with LunaDNA, a tie-up the organizations announced in January.
Investors in the round included ARCH Venture Partners, Bain Capital Ventures, F-Prime Capital, Illumina Ventures, and Osage University Partners.
— French biotech Dynacure is moving an investigational antisense drug it licensed from Carlsbad, CA-based Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IONS]]) in 2017 into human trials this year.
Dynacure recently announced that UK regulators gave it the go-ahead to start a clinical trial for DYN101, an experimental treatment for centronuclear myopathies, a group of rare genetic muscle disorders. The company says centronuclear myopathies affect between 4,000 and 5,000 people in the European Union, United States, Japan, and Australia. It is developing the medicine in collaboration with Ionis, which is one of its investors.
“With antisense, we believe there is an opportunity to reimagine the treatment of rare muscle-related disorders where no viable therapy exists,” said Dynacure CEO Stephane van Rooijen in a prepared statement.
