Stephen Knight

AI and Med Tech in Focus   AI System Developed to Identify Pathology in Tissues Engineers at Washington State University have developed an AI tool that uses images of human and animal tissue to detect abnormalities faster and more accurately than people. The AI algorithm was trained using images from past studies that involved kidney, testes, ovarian, prostate, breast and lymph node abnormalities. The new model detected disease in minutes—current processes take humans several hours and require specialized teams to check each other’s work. It was also found to be more accurate, sometimes detecting instances that humans had missed. The engineers designed the system to handle the processing load of the high-resolution gigapixel images by breaking them down into smaller tiles but still retaining the overall context of the tissue sample—akin to the zoom feature on a microscope or phone camera. Aside from getting diagnostic results more accurately and quickly, the new system also shows promise in epigenetics (the study of molecular processes that change gene behavior without changing underlying DNA). Epigenetic researchers can perform analyses and get results that used to take a year or more in just a couple of weeks. VC Investors are always adjusting their "Play Book" with a variety of options for investing. Mikal Ventures is one of those alternatives, offering curated solutions to real world problems. Reach out if you have questions on how we can be of assistance and bookmark https://mikalventures.com/ for additional insights and information.

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I'm so excited to continue supporting Prolific Machines, Inc., and the incredible Deniz Kent, PhD ,Max Huisman, and Declan Jones. Today's cellular biology processes are incredibly expensive, inefficient, imprecise, and sometimes purely ineffective. These processes are used from everything from making antibodies to treat diseases, to fermentation used to make high-value nutritional proteins in baby formula, to whole cuts of cultured meat. Prolific has developed a biology platform that leverages light to guide cell behavior and optimize performance over time using AI. By combining light, bioengineering, hardware, and AI in fundamentally new ways, Prolific can help pharmaceutical, nutritional, and therapeutics companies get to market faster, less expensively, and more efficiently — ultimately in hopes of helping improve outcomes — a mission any of us can get behind. Mark Cuban Peter T. Frederick Blackford Cooper Rinzler David Adelman Darco Capital Breakthrough Energy Michael Schulson Kevin Love Tobias Harris Breyer Capital Charles Besser Brennan Besser Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants https://lnkd.in/ea2TqdQk

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Our partner Eddie Eltoukhy has identified these opportunities in Biotech. Eddie has a PhD in bioengineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and over a decade experience as an operator. Reach out to him if you are working on these areas of biotech. Pear VC - Technology-Driven Therapeutic Platforms Companies developing therapeutic assets with a core product engine Proprietary tool, workflow, or samples leading to novel biological data sets Preference for omics platforms or high throughput screening / engineering workflows First-in-class or best-in-class drugs - Next-Generation Therapeutic Modalities Technologies to improve the efficacy, safety, access, or reach of next-gen modalities including the following: Genomic medicines (gene tx & gene editing) Cell therapies Targeted protein degraders Antibody-drug conjugates Radiopharma - Precision Medicine New technologies supporting the discovery of novel biomarkers and the generation of proprietary data sets for applications in: Disease screening Therapy selection Recurrence monitoring - Life Sciences + AI Software Platforms Software & AI-driven platforms to improve all aspects of life sciences R&D, including: Target discovery and validation Drug design and optimization Manufacturing Regulatory Clinical development

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At R7, we felt it was kind of silly for scientists to spend millions of hours per year, manually counting spores in a petri dish. We partnered with Reshape Biotech last year to provide a full-stack automation platform capable of streamlining everything from plate filling to diagnostics, slashing time-to-market by 10x and cutting costs by up to 70%. 🌟 Vision 🔬 : To build a new generation of lab equipment – and the infrastructure behind it – so that scientists and technicians can dramatically accelerate their work. Carl-Emil Grøn Magnus Madsen

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Fast-forward 10 years when every bio company has access to highly performant models for in silico molecular design... Assuming this translates into many more high quality candidate molecules, there will be insatiable demand for already-scarce clinical development talent. Clinical development skillsets will become multiples more valuable. An optimist might argue we need to start preparing our clinical development regulatory and operational infrastructure for materially higher throughput.

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There is a lot of advancement happening globally using the tools of AI. In drug discovery, using AI in an appropriate way to build a pipeline of effective solutions for patient health - therapeutics and diagnostics - that is where the rubber meets the road. Pipeline is key.

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Investor Deck -> Trial Protocol -> Trial Results   Clinical trials are tough Compromises must be made in design and results often fall short of the vision. That’s where Clerkenwell Health comes in. Our Catalyst program helps bridge the gap with tailored support, expert strategy, and access to a network of researchers and investors—all designed to keep your clinical development on track. https://lnkd.in/eJdhMa-F   #makeclinicaltrialsgreatagain

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How do we minimize the number of protocol amendments and increase the operational feasibility of our clinical trials? This article below points out the benefits of using data, conversations and real world data to enhance the feasibility of the protocol design and inclusion/exclusion criteria: 1) Are we being too strict on our criteria in order to "control" for data variability? 2) Do are criteria allow for the intended patient population in the real world (if not, they need to) 3) How realistic is your design in how the study sites actually work? How they see and treat patients? How is your company ensuring the design meets these requirements? https://lnkd.in/gzJzFd-3

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Chris Diorio is one of the great founder CEOs and technologists I've ever been lucky enough to work with and learn from. The story of Impinj is fascinating and inspiring. I love his advice for all leaders: "My No. 1 job as a CEO is to give every person in the company the opportunity to be wildly successful. I truly feel that if every person in the company is wildly successful, the company can’t help but be wildly successful." Look forward to further discussion with Chris on an upcoming Madrona Founded and Funded podcast about lessons learned from building the overnight-20-year-success-story that is Impinj.

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Excited to announce Frist Cressey Ventures' investment in Qualified Health and privileged to partner w/ SignalFire, Healthier Capital, Town Hall Ventures and others!   Healthcare costs are increasing at a faster rate than ever before, with the US spending nearly twice as other wealthy countries and still ranking bottom in outcomes. It's a story you've all heard - - US healthcare is known for astronomical inefficiencies, waste, workforce supply constraints, fragmented access, appalling patient experiences, and driving patients and businesses into debt.   Yes these problems present opportunities. But opportunities are limited to the system's appetite for change, desire and incentive to try something new and the innovation available. At FCV we believe we've hit the trifecta with Generative AI. Generative AI has given us truly transformational tools in the toolkit and the healthcare ecosystem is demanding to absorb its benefits. This perfect collision of supply and demand means healthcare is poised for big change.   Generative AI is everywhere, it's buzzy, it dangles hope and opportunity. But many things need to be true for the Gen AI transformation in healthcare to take hold, such as but not limited to:   💡 Patient lives and data need to remain safe: We believe in a highly regulated and human life-touching sector such as healthcare we must ensure Gen AI can drive to unrivalled savings and improvements in the quality of care WHILE not putting patient lives or data at risk.   💡 Systems need to own their utilization of Gen AI: We believe systems will use some hybrid of external partners and homegrown solutions but importantly will want full control of data provisioning and utilization as well as the ability to solve an unlimited number of nuanced issues and not cookie cutter algorithms.   💡 Costs need to be looked at on an enterprise level: We believe the speed of innovation in Gen AI means costs will continue decreasing dramatically but at an enterprise level this will still not be a small detail. Systems will want the ability to understand costs and delegate as needed for the outcomes desired at the organizational level.   Enter Qualified.   We knew when we met Justin Norden, MD, MBA, MPhil and team we were standing in front of changemakers. These individuals have lived and breathed the true application and implementation of Generative AI far before we were asking ChatGPT to write our emails. In fact, if you’ve ever driven in a Waymo you’ve benefited from past products this team has built.   Qualified Health is on a mission to enforce governance in Gen AI, allow systems to rapidly build for their needs, monitor and make decisions for all GenAI (homegrown and external) and accelerate the value the sector can glean from these new technologies.   Huge shout out to William T., Tommaso Auerbach and Jamie Kuntz for their hard work!

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Some great advice in this interview — featuring Jeffry Weinhuff of Visionary Ventures — relevant to all sub-sectors of #medtech. My favorite line is “investment capital is not tuition.” 😂 But the best advice stems from the insight that good exits via IPO or M&A processes with multiple buyers competing for your company require that most medtech companies must prove their value via strong commercial metrics. And doing that takes a lot of time, expertise and money. Plan, hire and raise capital accordingly. At Vensana Capital, our investment process centers on a deep analysis of every aspect of getting a breakthrough medtech innovation to market, no matter what stage of development a company is at today. We like entrepreneurs who believe their innovation can be highly impactful to patients. We love the ones who want to leave no doubt. https://lnkd.in/eDsUqgn6

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TLDR - if you’re a early-stage investor, builder or health care provider that believes the below facts... we at Conduit Venture Labs have a stealth venture in the oven w/ Krisna Bhargava, PhD (let's connect). 🦠 Environmental factors are responsible for ~90% of chronic disease. https://lnkd.in/gSJPGXVs 🥺 Primary care does not have the time nor education to screen environmental exposure. https://lnkd.in/gJ5GtHMV 🚀 Functional/integrative care is growing at ~23% CAGR but is unaffordable to most people. https://lnkd.in/gWwuChYk

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If you work in tech transfer this is a good read-in on how our diligence tech can assess and evaluate assets with minimal inputs. The best way to learn more is to see it live! Reach out to me directly to learn more!

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Not embarrassed to share Auxilius had a bit of cosmetic work done over the holidays. 💅 As of today, you’ll notice that the Auxilius website has a very different look and feel heading into 2025. While this is part of our effort to make clinical finance sexy (again?), we believe this more clearly reflects and articulates the way Auxilius supports the most innovative Biopharma finance and accounting teams in our industry. 🦾 The things we have in store for 2025 are anything but cosmetic. Auxilius customers will see a similar degree of change in our product this year. As our product becomes more robust (i.e., powerful, but big), we are making bold enhancements to our core workflows We are publicly launching three new offerings in 2025 — each designed to help our customers better plan and manage the most complex and variable components of R&D spend. Each has been designed and built collaboratively with early adopters among our 60+ customers, and we’re excited to make these available to the market broadly this year. 🔥 So yeah, I’ll say it. I’m fired up for 2025... https://www.auxilius.co/

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This will be a fascinating SynBioBeta talk - on how the combined tools of synthetic biology allowed Creyon Bio to build a successful drug in a few months 😳

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What is the cost of delay in drug discovery?   At imec.xpand, we see numerous companies that are developing disruptive technologies to accelerate drug discovery. What's striking is the wide range in projected financial benefits of this acceleration for pharmaceutical companies - from $0.5M to $8M per day. Are these figures grounded in reality? 🤔   Ken Getz, Executive Director and Research Professor at Tufts University School of Medicine, offers valuable insights. The higher estimates seem to stem from a 1993 study suggesting $4M per day, partially adjusted for inflation. Interestingly, their analysis shows that - over the past 30 years - the cost of delay has actually declined to approximately $0.5M per day, rather than increased. Ain't that unexpected?! 😮   It also means that accelerating drug discovery by one month still represents about $15M in value. So still worth it … but … the benefits brought by the new technology should extend beyond mere acceleration, at least if you want to generate some investor interest. A good example of what we find interesting at imec.xpand is e.g., a disruptive technology that not only significantly accelerates early drug discovery but also offers functional and molecular insights that help researchers at pharmaceutical companies to chose the better development candidate with a better safety profile.   Where do you see the greatest potential to accelerate drug discovery? And which additional benefits could the corresponding technology bring? Share your thoughts below.   And for those interested in Ken Getz's analysis: https://lnkd.in/ekUVg_XS   #drugdiscovery #pharmaceuticals #innovation #biotech #techbio #platform imec imec.xpand

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I’m excited to share my recent conversation with Joel Beasley | Modern CTO on the Modern CTO Podcast. We discussed my pivot from clinical medicine to the founding of Northpond Ventures, focusing on practical lessons from career transitions and the real-world impact of biotechnology innovations. Here are some of the highlights:  1. How I managed to reshape my career around personal strengths and market needs 2. The importance of support systems in overcoming professional challenges 3. How venture capital can drive scientific innovation into marketable solutions 4. An overview of Northpond Ventures’ strategy in fostering partnerships with leading academic institutions You can listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eGDzY98h #Biotechnology #Tech #Leadership #CareerChange #VentureCapital #Entrepreneurship

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Large VC firms are raising billions but focusing on late-stage biotech companies with proven data and leadership. ARCH secured $3B and Flagship raised $3.6B - but they're backing just a few select companies. Meanwhile, smaller VCs like Wing Venture Capital and KdT Ventures target early-stage biotechs, taking calculated risks on innovative science. Early-stage companies now face tougher fundraising conditions compared to 2021's easy money era, with investors demanding more proof before writing checks. Key tip for biotechs: Research your investors carefully - each VC has specific focus areas and investment criteria. #OBI4You #VentureCapital #StartupFunding https://zurl.co/zmqt

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