Visikol Receives Investment To Advance 3Screentm Drug Discovery

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., April 18, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Visikol Inc., established with an investment from Foundation Venture Capital Group (FVCG), an affiliate of New Jersey Health Foundation (NJHF), has secured a new round of funding led by industry executives, announced James M. Golubieski, president of FVCG.

Foundation Venture Capital Group initially invested in Visikol to help advance its work in transforming tissues into actionable insights to accelerate drug discovery through three-dimensional tissue imaging combined with digital image analysis.

"This additional funding will allow the Visikol team to greatly accelerate its growth," said George F. Heinrich, M.D., vice chair and CEO of FVCG.  "We are delighted that we could help the company get to this exciting point."

According to Viskiol CEO Michael Johnson, PhD, the financing round was completed with pharma services industry executives Brian Mulhall and Alan Weiss.  Specific terms were not made public. 

The new funding will be used to expand the company's commercial operations and to develop cutting edge bio-imaging services for drug discovery in the fields of advanced 3D in vitro assays, digital pathology and whole mount tissue imaging.

About Foundation Venture Capital Group

Foundation Venture Capital Group, an affiliate of New Jersey Health Foundation, invests in commercially viable new start-up companies developing health-related technology at major research universities in New Jersey with which they have affiliations.  In addition to Visikol, FVCG portfolio companies currently include: 

• Actinobac Biomed Inc., developing a therapeutic agent targeting blood cells for the treatment of hematological malignancies such as leukemia and lymphomas;
  
  
• Affineti Biologics, Inc., advancing research in the development of therapeutic and diagnostic products based on new discoveries in oral biology and dental medicine;
  
  
• Celvive, Inc., working to develop technology to treat patients with chronic spinal cord injuries with their own adult stem cells;
  
  
• Durin Technologies, working to develop a blood test to diagnose and assess severity of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases;
  
  
• GeneAssess, Inc.,  developing the FRY gene as a predictive biomarker for breast and other cancers;
  
  
• MentiNova, Inc., working to validate a drug that reduces the side effects of L-Dopa Induced Dyskinesia;
  
  
• NovoPedics, Inc., developing an implantable meniscus replacement/regeneration medical device to restore mobility to patients suffering from severe meniscus knee injuries;
  
  
• Snowdon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a drug discovery company focused on several major therapeutic areas and providing computational tools to rapidly identify high-value molecules from their library of vendor-available compounds.

SOURCE Foundation Venture Capital Group