MedTech Venture Investment Bounced Back (A Little)

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The past few quarters have been rough for healthcare startups looking to raise venture capital, but there may be light at the end of the tunnel–at least for medical devices. In a new report published today, PitchBook notes that the first quarter of 2024 saw $3.3 billion in VC funding for this sector, up from $2.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023. If the trend continues, “medtech VC funding activity for 2024 could result in the highest average annual deal value since early 2022,” the report said.

PitchBook found late-stage deals took just under half of that investment total, with the largest single deal being a $254 million raise for Freenome, which is developing blood tests for early cancer detection. However, the report notes that there were few exits in the first quarter “with no major IPOs and only a few acquisitions.” This may change in the remainder of this quarter, with Johnson & Johnson’s $13.1 billion acquisition of Shockwave Medical, which could be a potential harbinger of future exits to come.

Billionaire Jim Breyer Is Backing This Health AI Startup With A Radical Approach To Data

What if healthcare data didn’t need to be aggregated to be useful? Brigham Hyde spent a decade trying to aggregate bigger and bigger healthcare datasets to sell to pharma companies for research. Now he believes the future is federated: running separate queries on datasets where they already exist, rather than smashing them all together. He cofounded Atropos Health, which raised a $33 million Series B, to tap into 200 million records to help doctors make decisions based on what’s happening to patients in the real-world.

Pipeline & Deal Updates

Women’s Health: Biotech company Gameto, which is developing novel fertility treatments, raised a $33 million series B round led by Two Sigma Ventures.

Birth Control: Natural Cycles, the Sweden-based startup with an FDA-cleared birth control app, raised a $55 million Series C round led by Lauxera Capital Partners. Point72 Private Investments also participated in the round. Around 3 million people have used the app globally.

M&A: Merck is acquiring biotech company EyeBio through a subsidiary in a deal worth up to $3 billion. EyeBio is developing new treatments for retinal diseases.

Antibody Treatment: Johnson & Johnson has entered into a $1.25 billion deal to acquire Numab subsidiary Yellow Jersey Therapeutics, which includes the rights to its antibody drug candidate NM26, being developed as a treatment for atopic dermatitis.

Immunotherapy: Grey Wolf Therapeutics, which is developing treatments for cancer and autoimmune diseases, announced it has raised a $50 million series B expansion round.

Air Pollution-Related Deaths From Heart Conditions, Obesity, Diabetes Are Growing

Global rates of death caused by heart conditions, diabetes and obesity due to air pollution significantly increased over the past decade, according to the 2024 World Heart Report, and emissions caused by climate change played a part in exacerbating this. The number of heart condition-related deaths attributed to air pollution between 2010 and 2019 increased in some places by as much as 27%, and almost 70% of the 4.2 million outdoor air pollution-related deaths in 2019 were from heart conditions.

Other Healthcare News

Melinda French Gates will donate $1 billion to tackle women’s issues across the globe, including abortion rights in the U.S.

Eli Lilly will invest $5.3 billion into a new manufacturing site to boost production of its weight loss and diabetes medications Mounjaro and Zepbound.

Novo Nordisk’s weight loss injection semaglutide (branded as Ozempic and Wegovy) could also help protect the kidneys, according to new research.

Louisiana is the first state to classify abortion pills as ‘dangerous’ controlled substances.