Ohio Health Care VC Investments Up for First Half 2009 - Central Ohio Investments Nearly Doubled

In contrast to trends within the Midwest at large, a new report from Cleveland-based BioEnterprise found that venture capital investments in health care startups in Ohio actually saw an increase for the first half of 2009.  While the Midwest experienced a nine percept drop in health care venture capital investments the first half of 2009, Ohio saw a three percent increase in investments in its health care startups the first half of 2009 as compared to the same time period last year.  The Midwest Health Care Venture Investment Report  found that 33 Ohio health care startups received $86.9 million in investments in 2009 versus $84 million invested in 20 companies in first half 2008. 

More than half these investments ($46.6 million) were in companies located in the Cincinnati region.  However, Columbus and Central Ohio showed the most growth by percentage in the state with investments nearly doubling from $5 million in 2008 to $9.6 million for 2009.

In a related story, venture capital investments in Central Ohio health care startups got another large boost this week as Dublin-based medical device developer, Neoprobe, locked in millions of dollars in additional financing. 

Platinum Montaur Life Sciences LLC agreed to exercise 6 million stock warrants it had been issued, a move that will result in $3.45 million in proceeds by October.  Platinum Montaur, which signed a financing accord with Neoprobe in 2007, had until December 2013 to cash in the warrants.  Neoprobe also fine-tuned provisions of its agreement with Platinum Montaur which makes a $7 million note fully convertible into stock and will lead to the issuing of another $2.3 million worth of stock warrants.

Platinum Montaur completed a $13 million financing round with Neoprobe last year as the company began clinical testing of its cancer-detecting drug, Lymphoseek. 

According to Neoprobe CEO David Bupp the exercise of the warrants assures the financial resources necessary to complete the development of Lymphoseek and to commence a new phase 3 evaluation of the technology. 

For more details on the VC Investments in the Midwest see the story in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News.

For more details on the Neoprobe story, see Business First.