Octave Bioscience Announces Strategic Investment from the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund to Transform Disease Measurement and Care for Patients with Neurodegenerative Diseases

Octave to establish a Comprehensive Care Platform to provide a quantitative, objective measurement system designed to expand clinical insights for neurodegenerative diseases

MENLO PARK, Calif. & KENILWORTH, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Octave Bioscience, the developer of a fully integrated care management platform for multiple sclerosis (MS) and other neurodegenerative diseases, announced today that the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (Merck GHIF) has made a strategic investment in Octave to further advance its industry-leading capabilities in neurodegenerative diseases.

“The investment from Merck GHIF is a testament to the strength of our strategy, our team, technologies and platform,” said William Hagstrom, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Octave. “This investment further expands our already broad syndicate and further enables the full breadth of Octave’s services, ranging from measurement and management tools for physicians as they manage their patients to a precision-based set of tools and services that can help pharmaceutical companies better characterize their therapies and reveal additional insight to optimize their pipeline programs. We believe that this is just the beginning of a long and productive relationship that can help us shift the paradigm for patients with MS and a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases.”

“Octave’s approach to improve patient outcomes in multiple sclerosis is powerful and we believe will have broader neurodegenerative disease applications,” said David M. Rubin, Ph.D., Managing Director of Merck GHIF. “We look forward to working with the team as they continue to craft their platform focused on multi-modality, integrated findings and expanded disease insights.”

This investment underscores industry interest in addressing the unmet needs of those living with, treating, and researching MS. In developing its care management platform, Octave Bioscience is integrating novel measurement tools with structured analytical data models, ensuring that the precision care solution for physicians and their patients is complementary to the corresponding care solution for pharmaceutical companies developing groundbreaking technologies, payers, and population health on a larger scale.

For more information, please visit www.Octave.com and www.merckghifund.com.

About the Octave Bioscience Comprehensive Care Platform

Octave Bioscience is developing a Comprehensive Care Platform to provide a quantitative, objective measurement system designed to expand clinical insights in neurodegenerative disease, beginning with MS. It provides multiple layers of insight to provide a 360-degree view with a longitudinal perspective of disease progression. The first layer measures the patient’s underlying biology with blood-based biomarkers that quantitatively and objectively assess inflammation and immune modulation. The second layer includes advanced measurement using improved MRI readings and interpretation to reveal more insights at the CNS layer, including the brain and spine. The third layer features real time tracking of symptoms via monitoring with mobile tools, sensors and wearables to identify changes in patient status and alert care teams. All of this data is integrated into protocols, supported by decision support tools and feeds into a dashboard for ease of use. The Octave Platform allows individual and population views to facilitate better stratification and contextual interventions.

About Octave Bioscience

Octave Bioscience was founded to deliver an end-to-end care management platform for multiple sclerosis as well as a full range of neurodegenerative diseases. Its Comprehensive Care Platform is designed to provide neurologists and their patients with objective metrics to facilitate informed care and shared decision making for better patient outcomes. Octave Bioscience is headquartered in Menlo Park, California.

About Merck Global Health Innovation Fund

Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (Merck GHI) is evolving corporate healthcare venture capital globally by utilizing their healthcare ecosystem strategy. This investment strategy connects innovative companies with complementary technologies to develop integrated healthcare solutions. Merck GHI has $500M under management and provides growth capital to emerging healthcare technology companies worldwide while leveraging the vast R&D-based, global resources of Merck. With a vision that data will be the currency in healthcare, Merck GHI invests broadly in digital health. Merck GHI invests in platform companies with proven technologies or business models where Merck’s expertise and perspectives can accelerate revenue growth and enhance value creation. Since late 2010, Merck GHI has made over 50 investments in Digital Health companies. www.merckghifund.com

Megan Kernan
Westwicke/ICR Healthcare PR
Tel: 646.677.1870
Megan.Kernan@westwicke.com