GV-backed Verana raises $30M to mine patient registries for drug development data

Verana Health raised $30 million in a funding round to further its medical informatics platform, which uses real-world data and electronic health records from specialty-focused, regulatory-grade data sets to support the development of new drugs and devices.

The San Francisco-based company’s platform started with eye care, incorporating EHR data from the American Academy of Ophthalmology’s IRIS patient registry—which features more than 50 million unique patients in its database, 211 million visits and billions of data points—to assist with investigator and site selection, trial design and patient targeting.

Verana began developing its specialty data platform in 2017, when it was selected by the academy to provide the registry’s commercial applications for its IRIS registry. Previously known as DigiSight Technologies, Verana hopes to develop similar relationships with other medical societies, including data solutions for physicians.

In addition, Verana appointed Miki Kapoor as president and CEO to help grow the company. Kapoor was previously the CEO of Tea Leaves Health, a data company focused on the growth of health systems acquired by Welltok in 2017.

He has also held roles as president of Everyday Health and as head of IMS Health’s global payer/provider division. In addition, he served as a senior expert for McKinsey & Company, and as executive VP for health systems and health finance for the Clinton Foundation. Verana’s previous CEO, Doug Foster, will stay on as chief strategy officer.

"Miki Kapoor is a healthcare leader with a proven track record of building health data companies and growing them into global commercial enterprises," said Brook Byers, Verana’s chairman of the board and founder of the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, now known as Kleiner Perkins. "With this round of funding and Miki established as chief executive, Verana Health is poised to offer its data-rich specialty platform to advance patient care."

The series C financing round was led by GV, formerly known as Google Ventures, with participation from previous investors including Byers, Biomatics Capital, GE Ventures and Lagunita Biosciences. Verana plans to use the money to continue building out its platform and technology staff.

"Verana Health generates highly differentiated, deep clinical insights for ophthalmology, creating significant new opportunities for patients, physicians and the pharmaceutical industry at-large," said Krishna Yeshwant, general partner at GV.

"With the strong technical backgrounds and healthcare expertise of the executive team, the company is well positioned to transform the way data is leveraged to further innovation in eye care and other healthcare sectors," Yeshwant said.

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