- Verana Health, a tech company that is curating and analyzing real-world clinical data, announced it raised $100 million and acquired the assets and team behind PYA Analytics
Verana Health — a tech company that is curating and analyzing real-world clinical data for advancing patient care announced that it has acquired the technology assets and team behind Knoxville-based PYA Analytics (PYAA). PYAA is known for its large-scale data architecture solutions.
And Verana Health also announced it raised $100 million led by GV. New investors Bain Capital Ventures, Casdin Capital, and Define Ventures, and the slate of existing investors also joined the round. Going forward, renowned life sciences investor Brook Byers will continue to serve as Chairman of Verana’s Board.
“Verana is assembling the most comprehensive datasets in medicine across multiple disease types with the goal of accelerating medical research for patients with ophthalmic and neurologic conditions,” said Miki Kapoor, CEO of the Verana Health. “The financing and the addition of PYAA enable us to enrich these large clinical databases, creating a longitudinal view of the complete patient journey to inform research and patient care.”
Verana’s platform is known for aggregating regulatory-grade datasets through its partnership with two of the largest clinical databases in medicine, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) IRIS Registry, and the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Axon Registry. And the company curates and analyzes this de-identified EHR-derived data to advance medical research and patient care in the areas of ophthalmic and neurologic diseases. Plus Verana plans to expand into additional therapeutic categories over the next year as well as integrate imaging, genomic, and claims data sources.
“Verana Health is building the team and technology to unlock deep clinical insights that support the development of new treatments while increasing our understanding of how these treatments can benefit patients more broadly,” added GV general partner Krishna Yeshwant. “Under the leadership of its strong management team, Verana continues to redefine how we approach medical research.”
PYAA launched in 2013 by scientists and engineers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is the largest multi-program science and technology laboratory in the United States. And members of PYAA have led projects that include the linking of clinical records with images to improve early detection, the utilization of satellite images with other data sources to inform geospatial analysis, and early members of the Human Genome Project.
The data scientists, engineers, and data architects joining Verana through the acquisition will greatly diversify and expand the scope of the company’s capabilities.
“PYA Analytics is a data science company that develops state-of-the-art products for data linking and analysis,” explained Brian Worley, Co-founder and CEO of PYA Analytics. “We are thrilled to join Verana to enrich these extraordinary clinical databases and find answers to some of the most pressing challenges in medicine.”
PYAA’s team will remain in Knoxville. And Verana plans to hire and grow the office in the coming months. Plus the company will further scale its San Francisco headquarters and New York office in the coming year.
