Record-setting VC; genomic surveillance of COVID-19; Venture Madness winners; & more Arizona Bioscience News

October 14, 2021

By Matt Ellsworth

Women at a technology startup discuss the customer journey
Arizona sets new venture capital investment record following strong third quarter / AZ Inno

During the third quarter, venture capitalists funded 41 deals in Arizona worth more than $566 million, including $45 million for Mesa-based eVisit, a telehealth platform for health systems and hospitals.

How many COVID-19 cases are now delta variants? Nearly all of them, Arizona researchers find / Arizona Republic

David Engelthaler of TGen North—which now sequences about a thousand virus samples per week—believes that using genomic surveillance to keep watch on the variants will be a vital way to prevent future deadly outbreaks.

Venture Madness 2021: Meet the winners from this year’s startup pitching extravaganza / AZ Inno

The longest-running pitch competition in Arizona ended with prizes for six companies, including Phoenix-based Aesthetics Biomedical and Tucson-based SaiOx.

Q&A with UArizona’s Dr. Robert C. Robbins / BizTucson

University of Arizona President Robert Robbins says he is proud of UArizona’s role in helping to make Tucson a burgeoning biotech hub and promises more big things are coming from his university’s talented workforce.

Northern Arizona Healthcare constructs timeline for new Flagstaff Medical Center campus / Arizona Daily Sun

A new health-and-wellness village planned by Northern Arizona Healthcare will offer 20 percent more beds than the current Flagstaff Medical Center, northern Arizona’s only Trauma 1 hospital.

Valley fever disproportionately affects people of color / KJZZ

Arizona leads the country in Valley fever infections: About two-thirds of the nearly 100,000 documented cases in recent years happened here. And it disproportionately affects people of color.

Roche Anchors Region’s Bioscience Industry / BizTucson

“Having a world leader in diagnostics born out of the University of Arizona is a testament to many leaders like Tom Grogan, Jill German and others along the way. We simply could not sell this region without Roche.”

The Innovators: Eric Smith of UArizona knows it ‘takes a village to serve a startup.’ It’s his job to help with that / AZ Inno

“Over the last decade, we’ve seen the startup ecosystem formalize and grow in ways that I couldn’t have imagined in 2007.”

ASU professor researches origins of Alzheimer’s to find a cure / Arizona Horizon

Arizona State University professor David Brafman is using induced pluripotent stem cells to help identify why some people are more predisposed to develop Alzheimer’s disease, as well as commonalities between those who develop it.

New UA study finds cancer patients protected from virus after three doses / KGUN-9 Tucson

The University of Arizona Cancer Center has found that, compared to healthy individuals, patients in active cancer treatment given two doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine achieve lower immunity—but a third dose changes that.


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