rheumatoid-arthritis
(5)
Aqtual, Inc.
Aqtual, Inc. is a Hayward, California precision medicine company that reads epigenetics, gene regulation and transcriptomics from a single blood draw. Its proprietary active-chromatin cell-free DNA (cfDNA) platform captures circulating chromatin to survey hundreds of thousands of regulatory sites, integrating DNA, epigenetic regulation and protein-DNA binding in one blood-based assay. The company is first commercializing a test that predicts which therapy will work for rheumatoid arthritis patients, with a broader pipeline spanning oncology, immunology, cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological disease. Aqtual has raised roughly $47M to date, including a $31M Series B in July 2025.
Anuj Bhardwaj
Anuj Bhardwaj is the co-founder and CEO of SecondWave Systems, a Minneapolis-St. Paul medical device company building the SecondWave MINI, a wearable, noninvasive ultrasound device that aims to calm chronic inflammation by aiming focused sound at the spleen. He took a family-owned industrial ultrasound business founded by his parents in 1977 and redirected its core technology toward medicine, raising a $7M Series A in 2025 on top of more than $15M in government research funding from DARPA, NIH, and ARPA-H. Trained as a mechanical engineer at Penn State with an MS and MBA from MIT, he sits at the crossroads of hardware, bioelectronic medicine, and the emerging field of bio-ultrasonic therapy.
DeepCure
DeepCure is a Boston-based biotech that uses AI, physics-based simulation, and automated robotic chemistry to design novel small-molecule drugs for hard-to-treat immune and inflammatory diseases. Founded in 2018 by MIT Media Lab researchers, the company pairs deep learning with a proprietary chemical database of up to 10^18 synthesizable compounds and an in-house automated wet lab, aiming to turn AI-generated molecules into real, testable, first-in-class therapies.
Kira Biotech Pty Ltd
Kira Biotech is a Brisbane-based clinical-stage immunology company developing first-in-class antibody therapeutics that retrain the immune system instead of broadly suppressing it. Its lead candidate, KB312, selectively depletes activated immune cells to restore immune tolerance, aiming to treat difficult autoimmune and inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, type 1 diabetes, and graft-versus-host disease. Built on decades of dendritic-cell research from Australian institutes and led by US rheumatologist Dr Dan Baker, the company launched with a A$20 million Series A in 2019 led by OneVentures and IP Group.
SecondWave Systems, Inc.
SecondWave Systems is a Minneapolis medical device company pioneering bio-ultrasonic medicine: a noninvasive, wearable ultrasound platform that targets the spleen with low-intensity focused ultrasound to calm chronic inflammation - offering patients with conditions like rheumatoid arthritis a drug-free alternative to biologics. Founded in 2019 by Anuj Bhardwaj, Hubert Lim, and Jeff Heyman, it builds on ultrasound expertise from the family-founded Ultran Group and over $15M in non-dilutive government support from DARPA, NIH, and ARPA-H.