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
August 26, 2019
GT Medical Technologies, Inc. to be honored with an AZBio Fast Lane Award
Chandler, Arizona –The Arizona Bioindustry Association (AZBio) today announced that GT Medical Technologies, Inc. (GT MedTech) has been named an AZBio Fast Lane Company and will be honored on October 2, 2019 at the AZBio Awards. Approximately 400,000 Americans are newly diagnosed with some type of brain tumor each year. For decades, clinicians have sought better treatments for these patients that would effectively target tumor cells while preserving healthy tissue, but to no avail. There have been few new effective therapies over the past 30 years, and outcomes for patients have improved very little during this time. Recurrence of brain tumors is common, and about half of all patients treated for brain tumors have their disease recur within a year. As a result, patients often run out of treatment options when their tumors reoccur... 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
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
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
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
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
Portfolio News
June 17, 2019
GT Medical Technologies Announces Presentation of Data Demonstrating the Safety Profile of GammaTile Therapy for Various Brain Tumors
Tempe, Arizona – GT Medical Technologies, Inc., a company dedicated to improving the lives of patients with brain tumors, today announced the presentation of clinical data from a prospective study of GammaTile® Therapy in patients with previously irradiated intracranial neoplasms (brain tumors) at the American Brachytherapy Society (ABS) 2019 Annual Meeting in Miami. These data reinforce the safety profile of GammaTile Therapy, a surgically targeted radiation therapy (STaRT) that is designed to delay tumor regrowth for patients with recurrent intracranial neoplasms (brain tumors)... READ MORE
BlueStone News
December 11, 2019
BlueStone Managing Director Mara Aspinall named to 2019 Most Influential Corporate Directors List by WomenInc. Magazine
Brentwood, Tennessee –BlueStone Managing Director, Mara Aspinall, today was named to WomenInc. Magazine's 2019 Most Influential Corporate Directors list. Mara was named in the upcoming winter 2019 edition magazine and recognized for her public company board roles: Allscripts HealthcareSolutions, Inc., OraSure Technologies, Inc.
As a leading business magazine reporting on women's success and achievement, the WomenInc.'s Most Influential Corporate Directors issue is a comprehensive listing of women executives, influencers and achievers contributing leadership to corporate boards. WomenInc.'s winter issue is available nationwide as of December 20, 2019... READ MORE
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
August 15, 2019
GT Medical Technologies Announces Completion of First Case in Arizona to Use GammaTile Therapy
Scottsdale, Arizona & Tempe, Arizona – HonorHealth Scottsdale Osborn Medical Center is the first hospital in Arizona to begin offering GammaTile Therapy™, a new approach to treating recurrent brain tumors. GammaTile Therapy is an FDA-cleared, surgically targeted radiation therapy (STaRT) that is designed to delay tumor regrowth for patients with all types of recurrent brain tumors. The first patient was treated by John Wanebo, M.D., a neurosurgeon and an independent member of the HonorHealth medical staff... 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
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