St. Louis startup Radiologics, which provides software and services for imaging-based clinical trial workflows, has joined forces with a fast-growing company in the Twin Cities.
Minneapolis-based Flywheel said Wednesday it has acquired Radiologics. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. As part of the deal, both companies will now operate under the Flywheel brand.
Separately on Wednesday, Flywheel Exchange said it has raised $22 million in a Series C funding round and anticipates closing on additional financing in the “coming weeks.” The fresh funding helped finance the acquisition of Radiologics, Flywheel said. One of the investors in the Series C deal was St. Louis-based iSelect Fund.
Flywheel has developed a cloud-based, biomedical research data management platform it says is designed to help speed up the innovation process and improve collaboration in the academic, life sciences, pharmaceutical, academic and clinical research fields. In addition to its Minneapolis headquarters, Flywheel operates offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, St. Louis and Budapest.
“Big data plays a pivotal role in healthcare innovation. And realizing the full potential of innovation requires better data management,” Jim Olson, Flywheel CEO, said in a statement. “The combined Flywheel and Radiologics capabilities uniquely enable increased collaboration among the brightest scientific and medical minds and the best data sets in the industry, making it possible for the smallest labs to collaborate with the largest academic medical centers and commercial enterprises. Our goal is to power accelerated R&D in oncology, radiology and other therapeutic areas where innovation is paramount and increasingly data-driven.”
In a press release, Flywheel said the addition of Radiologics will help it expand beyond its data platform by boosting its ability to provide staffing services, consulting, technical support and software development. Through the acquisition, 17 employees from Radiologics will join Flywheel. The deal brings Flywheel's headcount to 100 employees.
“Together, we’re going to help speed the development of clinical trials, get to discovery faster, and reduce wasted time and resources along the way. We understood the tremendous opportunity to bring together Flywheel’s and Radiologics’ expertise for the advancement of medical research,” said Dan Marcus, CEO of Radiologics. “I’m thrilled that our combined company will continue to serve the research community through open source and enterprise informatics solutions.”
Marcus will become chief scientific officer of Flywheel.
