[ibimage==33438==Large==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
Cloud IT healthcare company NantHealth has just closed a $250 million Series B funding round from the Kuwait Investment Authority, one of the world’s largest sovereign investment wealth funds. Founded by healthcare entrepreneur and billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Culver City-based company has raised several large investments, totaling $410 million. The company said its latest round of funding would be used to speed up innovation around improving patient care and reducing healthcare costs.
NantHealth has put much of its efforts into a healthcare IT system, called the NantHealth Clinical Operating System platform. The IT platform tracks multiple patient health inputs and helps doctors determine the most effective treatment options based on analysis from big data. To come up with those treatment recommendations the IT system provides access to genomic and proteomic data, as well as clinical research. All of that data is considered in light of patient information that NantHealth’s DeviceConX software draws from connected medical devices. The IT system is currently installed in 260 hospitals.
“NantHealth’s goal is nothing less than transforming healthcare, knocking down the traditional barriers of today’s soiled system by enabling providers to make complex treatment decisions with all available medical information in a single location,” said Steve Curd, chief operating officer in a statement.
[ibimage==33439==Large==none==self==ibimage_align-center]
NantHealth founder Dr. Soon-Shiong is a serial healthcare entrepreneur. He first made his money by founding, then selling American Pharmaceutical Partners, a maker of generic intravenous drugs, to Fresenius SE for $5.6 billion. He later founded pharmaceutical company Abrixis BioSience, which was sold to Celgene for $2.9 billion. Additionally, Dr. Soon-Shiong is a minority stake owner in the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.
Despite being an extremely well funded startup, NanthHealth isn’t well known within the Los Angeles tech community; perhaps because much of its funding comes from non-typical tech investors, like the Kuwait Investment Authority and pharmaceutical company Celgene.
In addition to the funding news NantHealth announced several new hires to its executive team and board. Steve Curd, who was formerly the COO of WebMD, CIO of United Healthcare and CEO of VantageMed, is now chief operating officer. Laura Beggrow, former president of Strand Diagnostics and VP of US sales and marketing at Genomics Health, is now executive VP of commercialization at NantHealth. Scott Holbrook, co-founder of KLAS, joined NantHealth’s board of directors.
