Press Releases
Valo Health Acquires TARA Biosystems Creating First of its Kind Vertically Integrated Cardiovascular Platform
Combined Company to Spearhead Transformation of Cardiovascular Disease Drug Discovery and Development
BOSTON, April 5, 2022 -- Valo Health, LLC ("Valo"), announced today the acquisition of TARA Biosystems, Inc. ("TARA"), a New York City-based cardiovascular disease biotechnology company, creating the first of its kind vertically integrated cardiovascular drug discovery and development platform. The combination of TARA's proprietary human three-dimensional tissue engineering and cardiac disease modeling capabilities with Valo's Opal Computational Platform™ positions Valo to transform cardiovascular disease drug discovery and development.
"This acquisition builds on Valo's unyielding commitment to identify new treatments for cardiovascular disease, creating a best-in-class end-to-end drug discovery and development platform aimed at accelerating the delivery of lifesaving drugs to the millions of patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases," said David Berry, founder and CEO of Valo.
"TARA's proprietary human cardiac disease platform enables Valo to advance the discovery of new medicines for cardiovascular disease, ushering in a new era for patients," said Misti Ushio, founder and CEO of TARA. "TARA joining the Valo family is a natural extension of our pre-existing business relationship and is a unique fit given our shared vision of leveraging machine learning and human-centric data to transform the treatment of cardiovascular diseases."
The acquisition of TARA builds on Valo's extensive cardiovascular platform which already includes deep clinical human cardiovascular disease data giving the company a unique proprietary edge in cardiovascular drug discovery and development. TARA's state-of-the-art in vitro human cardiac disease models combined with Valo's artificial intelligence-driven Opal platform – which is built on high-fidelity patient data – creates a vertically-integrated platform and a world-class cardiovascular disease franchise.
"There is a significant unmet need in identifying treatments for cardiovascular disease. I believe that the combination of TARA's in vitro human cardiac model capabilities and Valo's computational platform will advance the evolution of new cardiovascular disease medicines, and provide hope to countless cardiomyopathy patients," said Leslie Leinwand, cofounder of Myokardia and current Howard Hughes Professor at the University of Colorado and TARA Scientific Advisor.
About Valo Health
Valo Health, LLC ("Valo") is a technology company being built to transform the drug discovery and development process using human-centric data and artificial intelligence computation. As a digitally native company, Valo aims to fully integrate human-centric data across the entire drug development lifecycle into a single unified architecture, thereby accelerating the discovery and development of life-changing drugs while simultaneously reducing the failure rate and cost. The company's Opal Computational Platform™ consists of an integrated set of capabilities designed to transform data into valuable insights that may accelerate discoveries and enable Valo to advance a robust pipeline of programs across cardiovascular metabolic renal, oncology, and neurodegenerative disease. Founded by Flagship Pioneering and headquartered in Boston, MA, Valo also has offices in Lexington, MA, New York, NY, San Francisco, CA, Princeton, NJ, and in Branford, CT. To learn more, visit www.valohealth.com.
About TARA Biosystems, Inc.
Headquartered in New York City, TARA Biosystems harnesses innovations in stem cell biology and tissue engineering to generate in vitro biology that recapitulates human physiology with unprecedented fidelity. Our highly versatile and robust platform captures integrated physiologic endpoints of human cardiac function across a wide repertoire of cardiac disease phenotypes. Our data facilitates decisive evaluation of the efficacy and risk of novel medicines, increasing the probability of success and decreasing long timeframes associated with traditional drug discovery efforts. Safer and more effective new medicines that rapidly make it to market means better health and longer lives, and we believe that benefits people everywhere. For more information, please visit http://www.tarabiosystems.com.
