TIDMPRTC
RNS Number : 8315V
PureTech Health PLC
11 April 2019
11 April 2019
PureTech Health plc
PureTech Health Affiliate Sonde Health Announces $16 Million
Series A Financing Round to Advance Vocal Biomarker Technology
Financing led by M Ventures with participation from MP
Healthcare Venture Management,
Neoteny 4, LP, Canepa Healthcare, and founder PureTech
Health
PureTech Health plc (LSE:PRTC) ("PureTech Health"), an advanced
biopharmaceutical company developing novel medicines for
dysfunctions of the Brain-Immune-Gut (BIG) axis, is pleased to
announce that its affiliate Sonde Health today completed a $16
million Series A financing round. The round was led by M Ventures
(the corporate venture capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt,
Germany), with participation from MP Healthcare Venture Management,
Inc. (the corporate venture capital arm of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma
Corporation), Neoteny 4, LP, Canepa Healthcare, and founder
PureTech Health. The proceeds from the financing will be used to
advance Sonde's capability across multiple health conditions and
device types and to fund commercialisation activities.
Sonde's approach extracts hundreds of proprietary,
non-linguistic vocal characteristics from short snippets of
recorded speech. The technology measures subtle changes in pitch,
hoarseness, rate of speech and other metrics imperceptible to most
listeners and uses them as biomarkers to assess health. Sonde's
focus areas include mental health conditions such as depression, as
well as a number of other mental health, respiratory and
cardiovascular conditions where remote, passive monitoring could be
impactful.
Eric Elenko, PhD, chief innovation officer at PureTech Health,
said: "Sonde is pioneering an entirely new approach to health care
with its proprietary platform. Their technology is designed to
efficiently detect early signs of illness and monitor for changes
in health using just a few seconds of voice. It's an exciting
approach with the potential to improve treatments and outcomes
across a wide range of diseases, and we're pleased to have a strong
group of investors take it forward."
The full text announcement from Sonde Health is as follows:
Sonde Completes $16 Million Series A Financing Round to Advance
Vocal Biomarker Technology
Participants include M Ventures, MP Healthcare Venture
Management, Neoteny 4, LP, Canepa Healthcare, and founder PureTech
Health
BOSTON, April 11, 2019-Sonde Health Inc., a company developing a
voice-based technology platform for monitoring and diagnosing
mental and physical medical conditions, today announced the
completion of a $16 million Series A financing round, including the
issuance of $6 million in shares upon conversion of debt into
equity. The round was led by M Ventures (the corporate venture
capital arm of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany), with participation
from MP Healthcare Venture Management, Inc. (the corporate venture
capital arm of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation), Neoteny 4,
LP, Canepa Healthcare, and founder PureTech Health. Sonde intends
to use the proceeds from the financing to expand its capability
across multiple health conditions and device types and to fund
commercialisation activities.
"At M Ventures we back exceptional science and technology
entrepreneurs to bring potentially disruptive ideas to reality,"
said Edward Kliphuis, investment director of new businesses at M
Ventures. "Sonde's best-in-class vocal biomarker technology, driven
by a great founder team, is such a transformational idea, which has
the potential to positively impact patient outcomes by
fundamentally reimagining how mental and physical conditions are
currently monitored and managed."
Sonde's proprietary technology is designed to enable a range of
consumer devices, such as smartphones and smart speakers, to
provide disease screening and management solutions based on
acoustic analysis of seconds of voice. Sonde is working to create
seamless universal access to accurate and timely health
information, which has the potential to promote wellness and
improve the timing and selection of a range of therapeutic
interventions. This approach may enable the prevention and
treatment of conditions ranging from depression and respiratory
diseases to chronic diseases of ageing.
"One of the oldest tools in our health care arsenal, the
thermometer, is arguably still one of the most valuable because of
its simplicity and widespread availability outside the clinical
setting. Our longstanding vision has been to harness the health
information present in billions of daily voice interactions to
create a 21(st) century thermometer, or 'vocometer', that provides
broad digital healthcare decision support needed to enable new
models of precision and preventative medicine," said Jim Harper,
co-founder and chief operating officer of Sonde Health. "This
financing round and the support of our new long-term partners
allows us to accelerate the development of this groundbreaking
technology and help deliver the positive impact it can have on an
individual's health and the healthcare system."
About M Ventures
M Ventures is the strategic, corporate venture capital arm of
Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Its mandate is to invest in
innovative technologies and products with the potential to
significantly impact the company's core business areas. From its
headquarters in Amsterdam and offices in the US and Israel, M
Ventures invests globally in transformational ideas driven by great
entrepreneurs. M Ventures takes an active role in its portfolio
companies and teams up with entrepreneurs and co-investors to
translate innovation towards commercial success. M Ventures has a
significant focus on early stage investing and company creation
including the creation of spin-offs to leverage the company's
science and technology base. For more information, visit
www.m-ventures.com.
About Sonde Health
Co-founded by PureTech Health (LSE: PRTC), Sonde Health is
developing a voice-based technology platform to monitor and
diagnose psychological and physical medical conditions. Sonde's
proprietary technology works by sensing and analysing subtle
changes in the voice to create a range of persistent brain, muscle,
and respiratory health measurements that provide a more complete
picture of health in just seconds. To date, Sonde has collected
voice and health data from over 10,000 subjects as part of the
ongoing validation of its platform. These research and development
data and activities are being accelerated to expand its proprietary
technology into neurological, respiratory, and cardiovascular
diseases as well as other health and wellness conditions. Sonde's
vocal biomarker programme has demonstrated the potential to
effectively screen and monitor for disease using information
obtained from an individual's voice on commonly-owned devices and
it has the potential to fundamentally change the way mental and
physical health is monitored and diagnosed.
About PureTech Health
PureTech Health (LSE: PRTC) is an advanced biopharmaceutical
company developing novel medicines for dysfunctions of the
Brain-Immune-Gut (BIG) axis. The Company has developed deep
insights into the connection between these systems and the
resulting role in diseases that have proven resistant to
established therapeutic approaches. By harnessing this emerging
field of human biology, PureTech Health is developing new
categories of medicines with the potential to have great impact on
people with serious diseases.
PureTech Health is advancing a rich pipeline of innovative
therapies across two divisions: its Affiliates and its Internal
labs. PureTech's Affiliates include seven clinical-stage platforms
with two product candidates that have been filed with the US Food
and Drug Administration (FDA) for review and other novel
pre-clinical programmes. These Affiliates are developing
ground-breaking platforms and therapeutic candidates in
collaboration with some of the world's leading experts.
PureTech's Internal research and development is centred on
tissue-selective immunomodulation for the treatment of oncology,
autoimmune, and CNS-related disorders, with a near-term focus on
targeting newly-discovered, foundational immunosuppressive
mechanisms in oncology and novel approaches that harness the
lymphatic infrastructure.
For more information, visit www.puretechhealth.com or connect
with us on Twitter @puretechh.
Ownership Information
PureTech's percentage ownership of Sonde Health following the
financing is approximately 55.8% on a diluted basis. This
calculation of PureTech's holding includes issued and outstanding
shares as well as options and warrants to purchase shares, but
excludes unallocated shares authorised to be issued pursuant to
equity incentive plans.
Forward Looking Statement
This press release contains statements that are or may be
forward-looking statements, including statements that relate to the
company's future prospects, developments and strategies. The
forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and
are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could
cause actual results, performance and achievements to differ
materially from current expectations, including, but not limited
to, those risks and uncertainties described in the risk factors
included in the regulatory filings for PureTech Health plc. These
forward-looking statements are based on assumptions regarding the
present and future business strategies of the company and the
environment in which it will operate in the future. Each
forward-looking statement speaks only as at the date of this press
release. Except as required by law and regulatory requirements,
neither the company nor any other party intends to update or revise
these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
This announcement contains inside information for the purposes
of Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 596/2014.
Contact:
Investors EU media US media
Allison Mead Talbot Ben Atwell, Rob Winder Tom Donovan
+1 617 651 3156 +44 (0) 20 3727 1000 +1 857 559 3397
amt@puretechhealth.com ben.atwell@FTIconsulting.com tom@tenbridgecommunications.com
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END
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