Markets & Industry
Vivante Health closes $31m to advance digestive health platform

Digital healthcare company, Vivante Health, has announced the closing of $31 million in Series B funding to develop its platform focused on the management of digestive conditions.
The latest investment was led by new investor Mercato Partners, and brings the total capital raised by Vivante to date to $47 million, following a $16 million Series A round in late 2021.
The new funding also comes on the heels of recent enhancements to the company’s proprietary GIThrive platform, which provides care for a range of digestive diseases from common yet often debilitating disorders such as IBS and GERD, to complex conditions such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease which requires high levels of care coordination.
GIThrive allows users to log food and symptoms, as well as offering online educational resources, 24/7 access to experts and AI-driven personalised care plans. It also offers access to a nationwide network of internists and gastroenterologists for diagnosis, treatment, lab test orders and prescriptions, alongside other new services designed to bridge the gap between virtual and real-world care.
According to Vivante, more than 90 per cent of GIThrive users report that the platform’s digital resources and 24/7 human support help relieve digestive symptoms and improve their quality of life.
Employers that have adopted GIThrive are said to have seen decreases of 15 per cent or more in digestive-related healthcare spend due to increased medication adherence and behaviour modification that reduce emergency room visits and inpatient admissions.
The Series B capital is intended to support continued technology upgrades designed to predict the onset and progression of GI conditions and provide complete virtual care for digestive disorders.
It will also be applied to ongoing expansion of the company’s commercial and client support teams along with onboarding support for new employers, health plans, and channel partners seeking better solutions for reducing the personal and financial toll of digestive disease.
The round also includes new capital from Health Catalyst Capital as well as returning investors 7wireVentures, Intermountain Ventures, Distributed Ventures, Human Capital, and SemperVirens.
Bill Snyder, Vivante Health CEO, commented: “We are thrilled to have the support of industry-leading capital partners as we execute on our vision at Vivante.
“One in four Americans suffers from a digestive disorder or undiagnosed digestive symptoms that affect their quality of life as well as their healthcare costs. We have proven that our scalable technology platform paired with our comprehensive care team results in better health, lower costs, and a much better experience for the members we serve.”
Joe Kaiser, managing director at Mercato Partners, added: “Vivante is reinventing the management of chronic gut conditions through its ‘right care at the right time’ triage methodology. This approach to patient-centric, digital GI management bridges the gap that exists between generalist and specialist care, giving patients back time, money, and quality of life lost to gastrointestinal issues as well as delivering a compelling ROI to employers.”
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Nyra health raises €20m for digital neurotherapy

Nyra health has raised €20m to scale its digital neurotherapy platform for neurological rehabilitation, targeting conditions such as stroke and dementia.
The Series A funding will be used to expand the company’s technology across the DACH region, accelerate its expansion into the US and support a more data-driven approach to neurorehabilitation.
Founded in 2021, Vienna-based nyra health has developed a certified medical device called myReha. Patients use the platform to train speech, cognition, fine motor skills and everyday abilities, supported by AI-driven real-time feedback.
The system analyses pathological speech, meaning speech affected by neurological damage, by assessing pronunciation, word retrieval, sentence structure and meaning. It also tracks reaction times, error patterns and training progress, adapting therapy automatically to a patient’s performance level and fatigue.
The company says neurological conditions including stroke, dementia and traumatic brain injury cost €65bn a year in Germany alone, largely because care often declines after patients are discharged from hospital.
Nyra health says myReha is used in more than 100 rehabilitation clinics and is reimbursed by 28 statutory and private health insurers, giving over 40m insured people access to structured, AI-based home therapy. According to the company, a randomised controlled study found that adding myReha to standard therapy led to greater improvements in language and cognitive function than standard therapy alone.
A companion tool, nyra insights, allows therapists to monitor language development, therapy intensity and progress in real time, adjust programmes and generate documentation automatically. An AI-supported Content Studio creates personalised therapy exercises based on individual performance data.
The funding round was led by Armira Growth, with existing investors Wellington Partners, Crane Venture Partners and EVER Pharma also participating. It follows a €4.5m seed round raised in 2023.
Moritz Schöllauf, chief executive and co-founder of nyra health, said:
“From the outset, our goal was to make our services widely available to those affected. Everyone who needs therapy after a stroke or other neurological disease should have access to effective, individualised care, regardless of where they live or how well their own healthcare system is set up. With this round of financing, we are taking another step in this direction.”
Christian Figge, managing partner at Armira Growth, said:
“Neurological rehabilitation can be made significantly more effective through digital solutions, especially in the area of speech ability. nyra health is considered a category creator with a proprietary AI-based solution that connects inpatient therapy, outpatient aftercare and home use.”
The company is also investing in multimodal AI models for therapeutic interaction and diagnostics as part of a €4.2m funded research project being developed with research universities in the US.
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Astellas and Vir strike prostate cancer deal

Astellas has agreed a US$1.7bn global prostate cancer deal with Vir Biotechnology to develop a masked T-cell engager designed to harness the immune system against the disease.
The collaboration centres on VIR-5500, a PSMAxCD3 bispecific drug known as a T-cell engager, or TCE. TCEs activate immune cells called T cells and direct them to attack cancer cells.
Unlike radioligand therapies, which deliver radioactive material to tumours, TCEs aim to recruit the body’s own defences.
VIR-5500 targets PSMA, a protein found on prostate cancer cells, and uses what Vir calls PRO-XTEN dual-masking technology.
This is designed to keep the drug inactive until it is unmasked within the tumour, which the company says may limit side effects elsewhere in the body.
Vir says only about 30 per cent of patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer, an advanced form of the disease that no longer responds to hormone-blocking treatment, survive for five years after diagnosis.
Marianne De Backer, chief executive of Vir, said: “The field is moving very, very fast.
“And we believe that we could accelerate the programme by working together with someone who has a really strong track record in the space.”
Updated phase 1 data presented at the 2026 ASCO Genitourinary Cancers Symposium showed that 82 per cent of heavily pretreated patients receiving the highest evaluated doses achieved a 50 per cent or greater reduction in PSA levels, a marker of disease activity. Among patients with measurable tumours, 45 per cent recorded an objective response.
Cytokine release syndrome, an immune overreaction commonly associated with TCEs, was observed in 50 per cent of the 58 patients treated and was described by Vir as generally restricted to mild events.
The company said preventative steroids were not required and no drugs were used to manage severe CRS.
Under the agreement, Astellas will provide US$335m in upfront and near-term payments, including US$240m in cash, US$75m through an equity investment and a US$20m near-term milestone.
Vir is eligible for up to US$1.37bn in additional development, regulatory and sales milestones, along with tiered double-digit royalties on sales outside the US.
Development costs will be shared 60–40, with Vir holding an option to co-promote the drug in the US, while Astellas will be responsible for commercialisation elsewhere.
For Astellas, the deal may strengthen its position in prostate cancer as Xtandi, its partnered drug with Pfizer, begins to lose patent protection in several territories this year.
Vir licensed the underlying technology from Sanofi in 2024, meaning some proceeds from the agreement will be shared with the French pharmaceutical company.
Competition in the field remains strong. Novartis already markets its radioligand therapy Pluvicto, while Janux Therapeutics has a masked TCE that is currently ahead of VIR-5500 in development.
Amgen and Johnson & Johnson are also developing TCE candidates for prostate cancer.
Vir plans to move VIR-5500 into phase 3 trials in 2027 and to begin testing the drug in earlier-stage disease in the second quarter of 2026.
Johann de Bono, the phase 1 trial’s principal investigator and a prostate cancer expert at the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK, said: “It is remarkable to see these early signs of profound anti-tumour activity in heavily pretreated mCRPC patients, and the favourable tolerability with minimal CRS to date means VIR-5500 could play a role in treating earlier disease.”
Anthony Jarkowski, primary focus lead of immuno-oncology at Astellas, added: “What really stood out to us is how they’re balanced, efficacy and toxicity.”
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