Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Sera Increases Series B Round to $25M with $5M from Gates Foundation

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Sera Prognostics said today that it has increased its Series B financing round with a $5 million investment by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The investment brings total funding in the round to $25 million. Sera originally announced the closing of the round last month.

With the additional funding, Sera aims to develop new tests for predicting the risk of preterm birth in women in developing countries, the company said. Sera plans to launch its current lead product, PreTRM, a proteomic test for assessing pregnant women's risk of preterm delivery, in the US this year.

"Preterm birth affects more than 15 million infants worldwide every year, with particularly severe consequences in developing countries," Trevor Mundel, president of Global Health at the Gates Foundation, said in a statement. "There is a great need for tests that identify the risk of preterm birth and other complications of pregnancy, so that effective early interventions can be used to improve the health of mothers and children everywhere."

With the investment, the Gates Foundation joins existing Sera investors Chione, Domain Associates, InterWest Partners, Catalyst Health Ventures, UpStart Life Sciences Capital, and Osage University Partners.

The Scan

ChatGPT Does As Well As Humans Answering Genetics Questions, Study Finds

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics had ChatGPT answer genetics-related questions, finding it was about 68 percent accurate, but sometimes gave different answers to the same question.

Sequencing Analysis Examines Gene Regulatory Networks of Honeybee Soldier, Forager Brains

Researchers in Nature Ecology & Evolution find gene regulatory network differences between soldiers and foragers, suggesting bees can take on either role.

Analysis of Ashkenazi Jewish Cohort Uncovers New Genetic Loci Linked to Alzheimer's Disease

The study in Alzheimer's & Dementia highlighted known genes, but also novel ones with biological ties to Alzheimer's disease.

Tara Pacific Expedition Project Team Finds High Diversity Within Coral Reef Microbiome

In papers appearing in Nature Communications and elsewhere, the team reports on findings from the two-year excursion examining coral reefs.