David Wetherell

We at SAV (Scale Asia Ventures) honored to share that Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) has awarded our portfolio company Kernal Biologics up to $48 million to accelerate its in vivo CAR-T therapies toward the clinic. This milestone fuels Kernal’s mission to make treatments for hematological cancers and autoimmune diseases more tolerable, affordable, and accessible—powered by their proprietary platform in genetic medicine. We’re proud to support Kernal Biologics as they continue to push the boundaries of precision medicine and transform the future of patient care. #ARPAH #invivoCART #biotech #geneticmedicine #KernalBio

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Doma Perpetual's 5.7% Stake in Pacira Biosciences: A Catalyst for Governance Change or Strategic Alignment? Doma Perpetual acquires 5.7% stake in Pacira, aiming to influence governance and strategy through board nominations. Investment includes $67.8M spent and three director nominees to enhance governance, aligning with Pacira's 5x30 growth plan. #shareholdervalue #corporategovernance #boardsofdirectors #activistinvesting https://lnkd.in/gfgu3Uw2

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San Diego has long been known for discovery-stage science. The shift towards late-stage development and commercialization is real: more San Diego companies are building with “endgame readiness” from day one—CMC, regulatory strategy, clinical ops, and commercial logic aren’t afterthoughts anymore. You can see it in two ways: (1) durable commercial-stage winners anchored here, and (2) late-stage assets getting acquired at scale because the data package is credible and the path to market is legible. Importantly, San Diego’s platform strengths (drug delivery, advanced modalities, translational tools) are increasingly monetized through partnerships and recurring economics—not just binary drug bets.

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Love this Andrei Georgescu, Ph.D. “Success, to me, looks like Vivodyne becoming the modern infrastructure for drug programs that seek to eradicate the extremely burdensome diseases of today, like fibrosis, cancers, inflammatory disease, autoimmunity... I see Vivodyne as the fundamental infrastructure needed to drive successful new therapies for such complex diseases that human trial-and-error cannot solve quickly enough.”

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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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Up to $22M from ARPA-H is more than funding, it’s a strong signal that Linnaeus Therapeutics is onto something meaningful in the race to preserve healthspan.

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I am so pleased to announce this partnership that is so complimentary to both organizations members, partners, and sponsors. Also, thanking the Biocom senior team led by Tim Scott for aligning our visions on how impactful this can be across the entire state of California. For anyone who wants to learn more and the impact this partnership will create reach out to either the Octane or Biocom teams. AbbVie Allergan Aesthetics, an AbbVie Company Medtronic Alcon Johnson & Johnson MedTech Edwards Lifesciences Bausch + Lomb STAAR Surgical Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Irvine Company Experian Hoag Health System UCI Health UCI Health Gavin Herbert Eye Institute UCI Beall Applied Innovation @ the Cove Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute TrueSpace City of Irvine City of Newport Beach City of Hope

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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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