BlueStone News
March 30, 2020
Bioscience Startups Find Success in Tucson: Region Draws More Drug, Device and Therapeutic Companies
Tucson, AZ –BlueStone Managing Director, Mara Aspinall, was quoted in the Spring 2020 issue of BizTucson, a regional business magazine.
“I believe we’re getting to that tipping point where there are enough companies and enough buzz about the fact that Tucson is the place to be, especially in diagnostics and devices because we have the resources here,” said Mara Aspinall, co-founder and managing director of BlueStone Venture Partners, a Southwest-based life sciences venture capital fund. READ MORE
Portfolio News
November 23, 2020
Tempe brain tumor therapy company garners $16M in capital raise
GT Medical Technologies Inc. has raised $16 million to expand its commercialization of a targeted radiation therapy for patients with brain tumors.
Led by London-based private equity firm MVM Partners LLP, this latest round follows a $10 million raise in early 2019, bringing its total raise to $29 million. Existing investors San Francisco-based MedTech Venture Partners and Tucson-based BlueStone Venture Partners also participated in the round. READ MORE
Portfolio News
October 14, 2021
GT Med Tech Recognized as Innovator of the Year at Governor's Celebration of Innovation Award Ceremony
Phoenix, AZ - BlueStone portfolio company, GT Medical Technologies, Inc. received the Innovator of the Year Award in the Small Company category (companies with less than $50M in revenue) at the Governor's Celebration of Innovation, an awards ceremony put on by the Arizona Technology Council and the Arizona Commerce Authority. READ MORE
Portfolio News
August 18, 2020
GT Medical Technologies Announces Data Demonstrating Positive Local Control and Safety Outcomes with GammaTile Therapy for Large Brain Metastases
Tempe, Arizona – BlueStone portfolio company, GT Medical Technologies, today announced new data from a clinical study of the company’s GammaTile® Therapy in patients with large brain metastases, or tumors that spread to the brain from cancer in another part of the body. Approximately 150,000 – 200,000 people are diagnosed with brain metastases each year in the United States. These data were presented at the Society of Neuro-Oncology 2020 Virtual Conference on Brain Metastases. The study, conducted at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, AZ, found that in patients with recurrent brain metastases who underwent surgery followed by GammaTile, there was a statistically significant improvement in time-to-local disease progression (TTP) compared to the same patients’ prior rounds of treatment. At 12-months, local control for tumors treated with resection plus GammaTile Therapy was 83% for all patients. Tumors that had received no prior radiation achieved 100% local control with GammaTile. READ MORE
July 16, 2020
The Rockefeller Foundation Launches New Testing Strategy to Keep U.S. Economy Open
New York – BlueStone Managing Director, Mara Aspinall, in conjunction with other contributors, collaborated with the Rockefeller Foundation, to help launch its second National Covid-19 Testing & Tracing Action Plan.
The plan offers four sets of recommendations, including a national strategy for scaling up the use of Covid-19 screening tests for asymptomatic Americans, the plan requires at least $75 billion be made available for testing. It also calls on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to lead in developing screening test protocols so organizations know how to protect against outbreaks and keep the economy functioning.
“This is not testing to count numbers. It is testing to stop transmission,” said Mara G. Aspinall, co-Founder and Professor of Practice, Biomedical Diagnostics at Arizona State University’s College of Health Solutions. “We need a paradigm shift from exquisitely accurate but slow tests, to fast and good enough to quarantine. Slow and accurate works for clinical management, but this virus is a sprinter not a marathoner. We need fast and frequent tests just to keep up.” READ MORE
BlueStone News
Portfolio News
August 24, 2021
GT Medical Technologies Presents Clinical Data on GammaTile® Therapy for Brain Tumors at the 2021 American Association of Neurological Surgeons Scientific Virtual Meeting
Tempe, AZ - GT Medical Technologies, Inc. today announced it is presenting clinical data in two oral presentations on the company's breakthrough GammaTile® Therapy for patients with brain tumors at the 2021 American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) Annual Scientific Meeting. The presenting authors, Dr. David Brachman, co-founder and CTO at GT Medical Technologies and Dr. Mehee Choi, director of Medical Affairs at GT Medical Technologies, will discuss new data in patients with recurrent glioblastoma (GBM), and access-to-care for patients with resectable brain tumors. READ MORE
Portfolio News
April 11, 2019
GT Medical Technologies Co-Founder to Receive Prestigious Rosenblum-Mahaley Clinical Research Award at 2019 American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Scientific Meeting
Tempe, Arizona & San Diego, California – BlueStone portfolio company GT Medical Technologies, Inc., a company dedicated to improving the lives of patients with brain tumors, today announced that Peter Nakaji, M.D., GT MedTech’s co-founder and director of the Neurosurgery Residency Program at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, has been selected by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)/Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) Section on Tumors to receive the Rosenblum-Mahaley Clinical Research Award. The award recognizes established investigators in neuro-oncology who present the best clinical study in the field and acknowledges innovative approaches that lead to improved patient outcomes and quality of life. Previous winners of this prestigious award... READ MORE
Portfolio News
March 15, 2021
Banner University Health Plans Reduces Hospital & Emergency Department Utilization Using Pyx Health's Platform to Address Loneliness
Tucson, AZ - Pyx Health, a tech-enabled services company providing health plans and their members an innovative, scalable solution that effectively addresses A white paper reveals that Banner University Health Plans' use of a novel interactive platform-plus-support center with members after discharge from emergency room or inpatient care resulted in a substantial reduction in subsequent inpatient costs and emergency department use. Analyzing the experiences of 1,170 members aged 18-103 years and comparing that data with a control group that did not access the digital platform, BUHP realized savings of $847 per member per month over a six-month period on this group of high-cost members.
The white paper was authored by Thomas M. Ball, MD, MPH, and Sandra Stein, MD, BUHP's former and current chief medical officers. Dr. Ball's research has been funded by NIH and he has authored multiple peer-reviewed journal publications, including healthcare economic analyses. Dr. Stein is board-certified in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry, and they have both partnered to integrate behavioral and physical health programs to better manage health plan-covered lives. READ MORE
New Portfolio Company
May 13, 2021
Boston-based tech company raises $8M to develop AI-powered CVD software
Boston, MA - Elucid, a Boston-based healthcare technology company focused on improving care for cardiovascular disease (CVD), has raised $8 million in Series A financing. Elucid will use the funding to continue work on its AI-based software designed to detect signs of CVD.
“This latest round of financing will enable us to continue advancing our unique technology for non-invasive estimation of cardiovascular event risk, myocardial ischemia and therapeutic response,” Blake Richards, CEO of Elucid, said in a statement. “This funding is validation of the market need for technology like Elucid’s to enable more accurate diagnosis of cardiovascular disease and patient-specific treatment decisions.” READ MORE
Portfolio News
March 6, 2020
BlueStone Portfolio Company, Paradigm Diagnostics, Inc. Acquired by Exact Sciences Corporation
Tucson, Arizona –BlueStone Venture Partners announces the acquisition of one of its portfolio companies, Paradigm Diagnostics, Inc (“Paradigm”) by Exact Sciences Corporation (“Exact Sciences”). On March 3, Exact Sciences of Madison, Wisconsin, announced the completion of its acquisition of Paradigm and Viomics, cancer diagnostics companies based in Phoenix, Arizona. Paradigm enables Exact Sciences to expand its role in the rapidly evolving field of biomedical diagnostics and personalized medicine, with a specific focus on furthering and diversifying its oncology testing capabilities. READ MORE
Portfolio News
January 22, 2021
2020 list of Gamma Tile Publications and Abstracts
Tempe, AZ - GT Medical Technologies Inc. had a very productive year in 2020 when it came to publishing about key aspects of GammaTile® Therapy. This included 4 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 9 abstracts presented at a variety of industry conferences, and 1 white paper detailing access to care for radiation therapy in the US. READ MORE
Portfolio News
June 26, 2020
GT Medical Technologies, Inc. 20 Medical Device Startups You Need to Know
Tempe, Arizona – BlueStone portfolio company, GT Medical Technologies, was named to Medical Design & Outsourcing 20 Medical Device Startups You Need to Know List. READ MORE
Portfolio News
March 9, 2020
GT Medical Technologies, Inc. named to FierceMedTech's 2019 Fierce 15 List
Tempe, Arizona –The MedTech world is about more than just building better medical devices. It’s also about technologies that, when applied with ingenuity, can help accelerate the entire biopharma enterprise.
This means leveraging CRISPR-based gene-editing techniques to make it cheaper and easier to translate ideas into therapies, or to build more-sensitive and shelf-stable diagnostic tests—or even to make animal organs compatible for human transplantation. r... READ MORE
Portfolio News
April 30, 2021
Pyx Health Receives Strategic Investment from Rallyday Partners. BlueStone Participates in Round as Company Sees 2,000% Growth and Doubles Users of Solution to Combat Loneliness Epidemic
Tucson, AZ - Pyx Health, a tech-enabled services company providing health plans and their members an innovative, scalable solution that effectively addresses the nation’s critical loneliness epidemic, announced today that it has received a strategic investment from Rallyday Partners, a Denver-based private equity investment firm. The funding will enable Pyx Health to enhance and scale its service offerings, further help people affected by social isolation in conjunction with loneliness, recruit additional talent and accelerate technology development. READ MORE
Portfolio News
January 27, 2020
GT Medical Technologies Announces FDA Clearance of Expanded Indication for GammaTile Therapy
Tempe, Arizona –GT Medical Technologies, Inc., a company dedicated to improving the lives of patients with brain tumors, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared an expanded indication for GammaTile® Therapy. Patients with newly diagnosed malignant brain tumors are now eligible to receive the FDA-cleared surgically targeted radiation therapy (STaRT)
We are pleased to offer GammaTile Therapy to patients who are newly diagnosed with malignant brain tumors, in addition to patients with recurrent brain tumors,” said Matthew Likens, president and CEO of GT Medical Technologies. “This is a significant step forward that expands our ability to improve the lives of patients with brain tumors. Patients receiving GammaTile Therapy immediately after the removal of a brain tumor will have the peace of mind that they are accelerating their radiation treatment and targeting residual tumor cells where treatment is most needed to help prevent recurrence.”... READ MORE
New Portfolio Company
October 12, 2021
Akadeum Life Sciences, Inc. Raises $17.5M Financing Round Led by Arboretum Ventures
Ann Arbor, MI - Akadeum Life Sciences, Inc., today announced the closing of an oversubscribed $17.5 million Series B financing led by Arboretum Ventures. Investors in the round also included Beringea, Agilent Technologies, Lifespan Ventures, BlueStone Venture Partners, Berkeley Catalyst Fund, Michigan Capital Network, Michigan Rise, The University of Michigan, and others. The Company also announced that Dan Kidle, Managing Partner at Arboretum Ventures, has joined the Akadeum board of directors. READ MORE