Proteus Digital Health, a US-based digital medicine developer that has raised roughly $470m from investors including a range of corporate backers, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Monday
Founded in 2001, Proteus is developing digital medicine products, the first of which, Proteus Discover, involves the use of sensors to help patients monitor their medicine intake and collect data that could be used by physicians to optimise care provision.
The company had raised a total of $382m in equity funding before it received $88m in equity financing and other payments from pharmaceutical company Otsuka in late 2018 through the extension of an existing collaboration.
However, a $100m round Proteus was raising fell apart the following year after Otsuka declined to reinvest, and by November people familiar with the matter told CNBC it had furloughed employees for two weeks before managing to secure $5m in emergency funding.
Proteus was reportedly valued at $1.5bn in 2016 when it raised $50m in a series H round that included up to $40m from drug producer Gloria Pharmaceuticals, two years after undisclosed investors supplied $172m in series G funding.
Otsuka, fellow pharmaceutical firm Novartis, enterprise software producer Oracle and investment manager Sino Portfolio had provided $62.5m for Proteus in a 2013 series F round.
The company’s other corporate backers include Kaiser Permanente Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of care consortium Kaiser Permanente, in addition to medical device makers Medtronic and St Jude Medical, trading group Itochu and semiconductor producer ON.
Carlyle Group, Adams Street Partners, Fletcher Spaght Ventures, Asset Management Ventures and Spring Ridge Ventures are also among the earlier investors in Proteus.
