Juan-Pablo Mas

Israeli MedTech: Restore Medical secures $23M Series B to push forward novel heart failure therapy The new funding will allow the Israeli startup to complete an ongoing feasibility study in Europe, where early results have shown what the company describes as encouraging long-term safety and efficacy data. Amongst the challenges of building a medical device company, fundraising, and global dynamics, it is a blessing to be able to watch Gilad Marom and team continue to succeed with their development! https://lnkd.in/eNjvg2cd

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Check out the latest from Limbic - their breakthrough study in Nature Portfolio, shows how Limbic turns frontier language models into behavioral health specialists. In their pre-registered, double-blind randomized trial they showed that: 1️⃣ Adding the Limbic Layer improves AI-led therapy performance by 43% 2️⃣ Clinicians preferred Limbic over general-purpose LLMs 83% of the time 3️⃣ 74% of Limbic's AI sessions ranked among the top 10% of therapists 4️⃣ Patients rate the Limbic experience as comparable to clinician-led sessions Amazing stuff from Ross Harper and Sebastiaan de Vries - delighted to have them in the Entrepreneurs First portfolio.

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Tarek Mouhieddine M.D. and I are excited to announce that POM Health is coming out of stealth today and opening a limited beta to early customers. We were founded with a simple mission of catching as many cancers as possible as early as possible and upgrading a cancer screening paradigm that too often catches disease late.  In the U.S., screening catches just ~14% of cancer cases, and around half of diagnoses are made at Stage III+. Despite having world-class detection technologies, we routinely screen for just 5 out of 200+ cancer types, often at multi-year intervals between screens, and most people won’t interact with an oncologist until there’s already a high suspicion of cancer. The result: 625k+ deaths from cancer annually in the US, 70% of which are in cancers without guideline-recommended screening, and far too many people believe their annual physical is an effective warning system. Elite cancer centers around the world (like where Tarek practices) have made significant advances in cancer detection and interception that have not yet translated to our primary care and insurance-driven screening system. With AI, we can now bring these advances to millions. Through POM Health, we offer access to more comprehensive cancer screening. Screening is led by world class oncologists, powered by AI, and accessible via telehealth, with one-time and annual subscription offerings.   POM's cancer screens use multiple detection modalities (including sample-based biomarkers, MCED, imaging, and genetics) to provide broad coverage across 90%+ of cancers, with overlapping coverage for 80%+. When a cancer signal is detected, your POM oncologist drives the next step quickly. The lifetime risk of acquiring cancer stands at 39% in the US and early onset cancers have doubled since 1990. Cancer isn't a rare disease and we believe people should have an option to mitigate their cancer risk.  Now serving beta test users in: MA, NY, and FL (CA soon, and waitlist open for all other states) Learn more: https://lnkd.in/e9qcaru9 Questions: lucas@pomhealth.xyz or tarek@pomhealth.xyz (POM = Peace of Mind, which everyone deserves when it comes to cancer) Thanks also to our first investor Leo Korsunsky!

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In the context of MedTech innovation, research often relies on proprietary data from private companies. Can a study using such data truly be "scientific" if the data-generation process and raw data cannot be made public? I think the statement from King, Keohane, and Verba (Princeton University Press, 1994) that research procedures must be "explicit, codified, and public" is profoundly thought-provoking for venture investment in the scientific valuation process in the MedTech sector. While intellectual property (IP) protection and non-disclosure agreements are critical to a startup's secret sauce, they create direct tension with this core principle of scientific inquiry. This tension is at the heart of venture due diligence for any data-driven health innovation. We must evaluate if a company's claims are "scientific enough" to be credible, even when the data itself is a closely guarded secret. The investor's dilemma: trust vs. transparency On one hand, a startup's proprietary data is its most valuable asset. It underpins a unique algorithm, a novel diagnostic tool, or a new therapeutic approach. Demanding full public disclosure of this data would be a non-starter; it would destroy the company's competitive advantage. On the other hand, without transparency, we lose the fundamental mechanisms of scientific validation outlined by King et al.: 1. Replicability; 2. Peer review; 3. Uncertainty assessment This creates a high-stakes information asymmetry where investors and potential partners must take a leap of faith. At today’s research design method session, Professor Stephen Linder, Professor Aanand D. Naik, M.D. , and Professor Stephanie Silveira guided a group of fellow researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth Houston) to discuss the research design nuances between qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches, I brought up this question, and some insightful takeaways and recommendations sound realistic and practical to me. A recommended solution: To resolve this, it is considerable to adopt a modified standard for "scientific" credibility that focuses on what can be made public without compromising the core IP. The diligence process shall be designed to push for maximum transparency on the METHODOLOGY, rather than the raw data itself. This aligns with a comment from Professor Stephen Linder, who noted that "the methodology should be disclosed to the public, which could be one way to evaluate how 'scientific' it is and if it is scientific enough". In essence, if the startup's research is a black box, we need to have a white-box explanation of its internal workings. The credibility of the research lies not in the public availability of the data, but in the replicability and rigor of the underlying scientific process and methodology. This approach allows investors and founders to make alignment based on authentic and accountable scientific findings. 

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I was honored to contribute insights to this piece on San Diego's biotech ecosystem—a market I've watched evolve significantly over 27 years in healthcare and life sciences. The article features 11 powerhouse companies, from Illumina and Thermo Fisher to emerging leaders like Element Biosciences and Crinetics. But beyond the profiles, it captures something essential about what makes San Diego different. Three observations from the ground: 1. Density without bureaucracy. The Mesa creates a true innovation corridor—UC San Diego, Salk, Scripps Research, and Sanford Burnham Prebys interweave with startups and scaled biopharma. This proximity reduces friction for diligence, talent recruitment, and specialized services in ways Boston and the Bay Area can't replicate. 2. Science-led, but transaction-optimized. San Diego has evolved from "discovery-first" to a complete company-building engine. Teams now design programs around pivotal endpoints, clean CMC plans, and partner-ready data packages earlier. Good science doesn't just get published here—it gets built. 3. Capital is increasingly earned. We're seeing more structured financing (tranched rounds, milestone-based pay-ins), CVRs, and hybrid collaborations. Strategic partners underwrite risk more explicitly. The winning teams treat capital strategy as a product—staging proof points and designing deal structures that preserve upside while de-risking 12-24 months out. Looking ahead, I expect San Diego's next growth phase to be defined by modality-driven oncology, neuroscience/neurodegeneration, precision immunology, and industrial-strength enabling platforms. The market increasingly rewards companies that combine compelling biology, manufacturability, and a partner-ready clinical narrative. I hope you find the article worth a read, especially if you're tracking West Coast biotech or thinking about where innovation capital flows most efficiently. #Biotech #LifeSciences #SanDiego #Innovation #InvestmentBanking #Dealmaking #Healthcare

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Interesting developments lately around two companies in infinitas capital's and Korify Capital's portfolio, highlighting the renewed momentum in CNS and mental health therapeutics. Alto Neuroscience today announced a $120M private placement financing, providing significant capital to advance its precision psychiatry pipeline, which aims to match patients with treatments using biomarker-driven approaches. At the same time, Bloomberg (link in comments) reported that ATAI Life Sciences AG (ataiBeckley) is exploring strategic options for its lead psychedelic program BPL-003, including a potential partnership or sale that could value the asset at $2B+ as it moves into Phase 3 trials for treatment-resistant depression. Taken together, this reinforces two broader trends we are seeing in the market: 🧠 CNS is moving back to the top of pharma’s strategic agenda, particularly with a significant patent cliff approaching later this decade 💊 Psychedelic therapies are increasingly attracting interest from large pharmaceutical companies, as the clinical data continues to improve and regulatory pathways become clearer With enormous unmet need in mental health and multiple innovative approaches now reaching later clinical stages, neuroscience could become one of the most active biotech sectors in this cycle. #Biotech #Neuroscience #CNS #Psychedelics #BiotechInvesting

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Synthesize Bio have launched with a $10M seed round led by Madrona, with support from Sahsen Ventures, LLC, Inner Loop Capital, Point Field Partners, and AI2 Incubator. The Seattle-based startup is building biological foundation models with generative AI to accelerate drug discovery. 🤖 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐚𝐢𝐦 𝐭𝐨: - Streamline the identification of high-confidence drug targets. - Simulate therapeutic responses. - Optimize clinical trial design. 🙌 Congratulations to Robert Bradley and the team and make sure you follow their journey with growth almost certain to follow. #AI #Bioinformatics #DrugDiscovery

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🧬 Programmable Biology is coming! 🧬 “I saw extraordinary software and hardware built to support Mechanical and Electrical engineers, but not Biologists. We were being sold equipment that costs 10x what it should, and performed 1/10th of what we needed.” — Roya Amini-Naieni, co-founder & CEO of Trilobio That’s the gap Trilobio is closing—and why programmable biology is finally getting the tooling it deserves. Trilobio isn’t just automating labs. It’s rethinking how biology gets done. Robotic workcells that run experiments end-to-end. Software that scientists (not just programmers) can actually use. And a platform that helps the same team run 10x more experiments, without burnout. This is the future of synthetic biology—and it’s being built by Roya and Max. If you care about the future of biotech, bookmark Trilobio. 🚀 Read more: https://lnkd.in/gNJvxevJ

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