Bone Health Technologies Closes $2.5M
Bone Health Technologies has closed a $2.5 million funding round and appointed three members to its Board of DIrectors: Karen Drexler; Nancy Lynch, M.D.; and Sam Goldberger, M.D.
“Our mission is to provide an effective and safe treatment for the more than 40 million Americans with low bone density. This capital and the expertise we are bringing to bear is exactly what we need to complete our pivotal trial and bring this important innovation to market,” said Laura Yecies, CEO of Bone Health Technologies (BHT).
“We have been involved with Bone Health Technologies since the early proof of concept stage and are thrilled to lead this investment round—the unmet need and hence the business opportunity is enormous” said John Osborne, managing partner, Good Growth Capital. Good Growth Capital led the oversubscribed funding round, which includes investments by Astia Angels, Ambit Health Ventures, Portfolia Femtech Fund, IT-Farm, Golden Seeds, Berkeley Angel Network, the Band of Angels, and Reno Seed Fund as well as prominent individual angel Investors.
A founding member of Astia Angels, Drexler now joins the Bone Health Technologies board in addition to her board positions at ResMed, Outset Medical, Tivic Health, and VIDA Diagnostics. She brings extensive commercial and technical experience to the board team from a variety of health and medical focused organizations.
Drexler brings engineering capabilities, coupled with business and entrepreneurial experience to the board room. She has been an active board member for public and private medical device and diagnostics companies for more than a decade. Drexler also has extensive management experience. She founded and ran Amira Medical until its sale to Roche Diabetes Care. She also managed a variety of functions across the company at LifeScan and executed the sale of the company to Johnson & Johnson. Most recently, Drexler was the CEO of Sandstone Diagnostics, a life science tools company focused on increased access to high-quality diagnostic testing. In addition to her corporate board roles, Drexler is active at Springboard, and a founding member of Astia Angels, nonprofit organizations that support female entrepreneurs. A guest lecturer at Stanford University in medical device design and mobile health curriculums, Drexler also provides mentoring for the Stanford Biodesign Fellowship and StartX, an off-campus Stanford Accelerator.
Drexler earned her MBA from Stanford University and her BSE in chemical engineering from Princeton University.
Goldberger brings significant medical expertise to the BHT board. Goldberger is co-founder and managing partner of Ambit Health Ventures and has more than 28 years of surgical experience. He practiced as an ophthalmologist and ophthalmic surgeon for 24 years in Southern California. Goldberger is the author of numerous scientific papers and served as an assistant clinical professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine and at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. After earning his MBA as a Sloan Fellow at MIT in 2016, Goldberger was recruited by a private equity firm to be CEO of their ophthalmology division and led a very large and successful ophthalmology practice roll up. In 2018, he founded and led his own healthcare and life sciences investing firm, Rangol Partners. Goldberger is board certified by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and a member of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Goldberger earned a bachelor of science degree in biology from MIT, a medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an MBA from MIT Sloan.
Lynch has more than 25 years of experience in the clinical and business elements of orthopedics. She is a board-certified, fellowship-trained orthopedic surgeon and a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons and has served as chief medical officer of and consultant to several medical device companies. Lynch is president of Advisorthopædics Incorporated, a consultancy exclusively focused on innovation in orthopedics. In addition to spending several years as a practicing orthopedic surgeon, she has worked as a venture capitalist, an executive within startup companies, and a consultant to sponsors and contract research organizations.
Lynch earned a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Notre Dame and a medical degree from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, completed residency at the Mayo Clinic and fellowship at the Indiana Hand Center, and earned an M.B.A. from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
The round and board appointments add to a successful year for BHT. It recently appointed CEO Laura Yecies and was granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for OsteoBoost, the first vibration belt specifically designed for the prevention of osteoporosis. At the 2021 One Harvard New Venture Competition, Bone Health Technologies was awarded both the One Harvard New Venture Competition Grand Prize Winner and Northern California Crowd Favorite titles.
Osteoboost is based on NASA research which proved that medical stimulation of bones through vibration would improve bone health in astronauts. Studies have shown that one 30-minute treatment with OsteoBoost reduced bone loss activity in all study participants.
Bone Health Technologies is a San Francisco based company that applies science and medical expertise to create better health outcomes for women and men at risk of developing osteoporosis and the associated bone fractures. It was initially created in the med-tech incubator TheraNova.
