Venturing for Gold Mining from Real-World Data: GV Invests in Verana Health

Increasing applications from physicians and pharma companies have proved Real-world data to be helpful in clinical research and drug development. Seeing the potential of how it could be transformed into real benefits, Alphabet’s GV led a $100M investment round for Verana Health along with Bain Capital ventures, Casdin Capital and Define Ventures.

Established just two 2 years ago, Verana Health focuses specifically on ophthalmology and neurology. Partnering with the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Academy of Neurology, Verana provides members with free access to the datasets, under the condition that they share their own records and data in exchange. The close collaboration between Verana and these associations and physicians piles up real-world data of health care and disease treatment in a good feedback loop.

The new investment coincides with Verana’s new acquisition of PYA Analytics (PYAA), a Tennessee-based company that specializes in large-scale data architecture solutions.

“PYA Analytics is a data science company that develops state-of-the-art products for data linking and analysis,” said Dr. Brian Worley, Co-founder and CEO of PYAA. “We are thrilled to join Verana to enrich these extraordinary clinical databases and find answers to some of the most pressing challenges in medicine.”

This enables Verana de-silo the valuable information collected in HITEC Act raised by HHS including imaging, genomics and administrative claims data to gain more insights. While working deep and wide to help researchers and physicians to optimize the health care system, Verana further follows up with their pharma clients by providing services related to clinical trial progress.

“Verana is assembling the most comprehensive datasets in medicine across multiple disease types with the goal of accelerating medical research for patients with ophthalmic and neurologic conditions,” said Miki Kapoor, CEO of Verana Health.

“The financing and the addition of PYAA enable us to enrich these large clinical databases, creating a longitudinal view of the complete patient journey to inform research and patient care.”

References

1. https://www.veranahealth.com/2020/02/verana-health-accelerating-healthcare-innovation-with-real-world-evidence/

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