Vineti, a General Electric spinoff aimed at speeding up and improving “arcane” processes within cell and gene therapy, secured $13.75 million from several investors, including the Mayo Clinic.
 
With new capital, Vineti will be able to hire new staff and deliver their first product, a cloud-based software solution meant to cut down the time hospitals and caregivers spend filling out paperwork and coordinating delivery of therapy for diseases such as cancer, according to Amy DuRoss, CEO of the San Francisco-based company.
 
“Physicians, medical researchers and pharmaceutical companies are working together to develop successful therapies, transitioning from a one-size-fits-all model to individualized treatments for each patient. Now, the process for creating and delivering these treatments can be as innovative as the therapies themselves,” DuRoss said in a statement.
 
The idea behind Vineti was spurred from regular customer requests to General Electric’s health care group about the lack of automation between production and delivery of drugs and other treatment plans.
 
“There’s a serious discrepancy between the accelerated development of life-saving cancer therapies and the supporting technologies to deliver these treatments,” said Risa Stack, a Vineti board member and the general manager of new business creation at General Electric’s venture arm. “Vineti’s dream team of leading industry pioneers and software engineers have formed the first company to align innovation in research with innovation in how next-generation therapies are produced and delivered, putting them on equal ground for the first time.”
 
Oncology is the largest market in medicine. Spending within the field is expected to reach $165 billion by 2021, according to a 2017 report by New York City-based financial services firm Cowen.
 
This is not the first instance that Rochester-based Mayo Clinic has teamed with General Electric in the fight against cancer. Last year, the health care organization collaborated with them to launch a company that is intended to bring the first blood cancer immunotherapy to market.