– Visus Therapeutics from Seattle develops innovative ophthalmic therapies to improve vision for people around the world.
– The company raised $20m in funding.
– The round was led by LSP in Amsterdam with participation from Sage Partners of Hong Kong, Johnson & Johnson Innovation -JJDC, Inc. and other inside investors.
– The new investment will be used to advance its clinical and commercial efforts for lead asset BRIMOCHOL under investigation for presbyopia as well as new research and development activities in its drug development pipeline.

– Iterative Scopes closed a $30m Series A financing.
– The round was led by new investor Obvious Ventures, with participation from Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the venture capital firms Breyer Capital and Seae Ventures, as well as a number of leaders in healthcare, including Lee Shapiro, Zach Weinberg and Nat Turner.
– The funds will be used to further develop the company’s core algorithmic innovations and to advance its growing life sciences businesses.
– The company is building a powerful set of proprietary artificial intelligence (AI)-driven computational tools to identify appropriate treatments and guide clinical trials for patients suffering from gastrointestinal diseases.

– Ribon Therapeutics announced the closing of a $65m financing.
– The financing was led by Deerfield Management and U.S. Venture Partners, with support from new investors Avego BioScience Capital, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Monashee Investment Management and Peregrine Ventures, along with existing investors AbbVie Ventures, Bristol Myers Squibb, Euclidean Capital, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Novartis Venture Fund, Osage University Partners, Takeda Ventures and The Column Group.
– Ribon will use the proceeds to support the clinical development of its novel precision medicine candidates.

– TRexBio, a discovery stage company decoding human tissue immune biology to create revolutionary therapeutics, announced the successful close of the final tranche of a $59m Series A financing.
– Proceeds from the financing will be used to expand the company’s unique discovery platform that maps human tissue regulatory T cell (Treg) behavior to dysregulation in disease, and to advance its six preclinical therapeutic programs.
– Investors include Eli Lilly and Company, SV Health, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Pfizer Ventures, and Alexandria Venture Investments.
– TRexBio also announced the appointment of Johnston Erwin as Chief Executive Officer, and Ovid Trifan, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer, as part of the company’s plan to accelerate growth.

– Jefferies acted as sole lender to EBS. Aon Plc, using its proprietary intellectual property (IP) valuation platform to value EBS’ IP portfolio, arranged for an IP Collateral Insurance policy for Jefferies, collateralized by EBS’ IP portfolio.
– EBS is raising $49m in non-dilutive growth capital from Jefferies Group LLC’s subsidiary, Jefferies Funding LLC (Jefferies).
– Following Series A and B raises, including multiple rounds of investment from Johnson & Johnson INNOVATION | JJDC.
– EBS is a leader in functional ingredients and bioactives.

– Infinite Looks announced a $4.2M Series A funding round led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation with participation from additional investors including Ignite Venture Studio and Symrise Inc.
– The funds will be used to fuel the continued development of innovative products for the Infinite Looks brand, Sunday II Sunday, which provides solutions to the challenges that sweat and activity create for textured hair.
– Sunday II Sunday seeks to blur the lines between health and beauty products to ensure that women never have to compromise one for the other.
– Launched in Q2 of 2020, Sunday II Sunday provides a solution to an issue that was previously overlooked in the hair care industry, as a result, the brand has seen rapid growth and positive consumer sentiment.
– Since launching, Sunday II Sunday has seen an average monthly growth rate of 23% with conversion rates nearly double the industry average.

– On Target Laboratories secured $21m in an expanded Series B funding round.
– The funds will support the continued development and commercialization of the company’s novel compound, pafolacianine sodium injection.
– The funding was wholly backed by existing investors Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., H.I.G. Capital, Elevate Ventures, The Hurvis Group, and 3B Future Health Fund (formally Helsinn Investment Fund).
– The funds will drive the commercialization of the company’s first indication in ovarian cancer.
– The funding will also be used to complete the ELUCIDATE Trial, a Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating the use of pafolacianine sodium injection to intraoperatively identify lung cancer in real-time.

– Ghanaian healthtech startup Redbird raised $1.5m seed funding.
– Investors who participated in the round include Johnson & Johnson Foundation, Newton Partners (via the Imperial Venture Fund), and Founders Factory Africa.
– The company was launched in 2018 by Patrick Beattie, Andrew Quao and Edward Grandstaff.
– It enables pharmacies in Ghana to add rapid diagnostic testing for 10 different health conditions to their pharmacy services.

– Paige, a global leader in AI-based diagnostic software in pathology, today announced that KKR, a leading global investment firm, joined Casdin Capital and Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC) as co-leads in its Series C financing round, bringing the round to over $125 million.
– Paige will use this new capital to expand its geographic footprint as it accelerates the development of AI-based clinical applications, biomarkers and diagnostics.
– Additional investors in the Series C round include Catalio Capital Management, existing investors and other funds, as previously announced.
– For KKR, the investment is being funded through the firm’s Health Care Strategic Growth Fund, which is focused on investing in high-growth health care-related companies for which KKR can be a unique partner in helping reach scale.

– Visus Therapeutics Inc. (the “Company”), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company in pursuit of developing the world’s first presbyopia-correcting eye drop with the potential to last a minimum of eight hours, today announced the close of a $36 million Series A Preferred Stock financing.
– Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC), RTW Investments, LP, and Wille AG participated in the round, with additional participation from the Company’s existing shareholders.
– Proceeds from the Series A financing will be used to advance the clinical development program for the company’s lead asset, BRIMOCHOL™, an investigational drug designed to be a once-daily eye drop to correct for the loss of near vision associated with presbyopia.