Durham medical technology company pulls in $6 million

A Durham medical research company co-founded by Ralph Snyderman, former CEO of the Duke University Health System, has attracted interest from several health-care heavy hitters and enough cash to introduce its first product this year.

Proventys is working on software that promises to help prevent complications from chemotherapy by identifying at-risk cancer patients.

The company plans to use part of its $5.65 million in private financing to test the technology, and it might target other therapeutic areas. Timothy Thompson, who joined Proventys as its first chief executive six months ago, declined to provide details.

The technology aims to personalize cancer treatment, an effort several companies are pursuing to rein in rising health-care costs, said Thompson, who was an executive at health insurer Aetna before joining Proventys.

At Proventys, Thompson will get help from a board that includes Marc Owen, head of business development at health-care services and information giant McKesson, and David Lawrence, former CEO of Kaiser Permanente, a managed-care organization.

"When you're starting a company in a market that is emerging, it is incredibly important to have a sounding board," Thompson said.

Snyderman and Jason Langheier, an entrepreneur who is working on his medical degree at Duke, founded Proventys in October 2004, N.C. Secretary of State records show. A few months earlier, Snyderman had stepped down as Duke's chancellor for health affairs and executive dean of the school of medicine.

Raising its first venture capital, including an investment by Burrill & Co., a California firm with more than $950 million under management, lets Proventys hire more.

In the past six weeks, Thompson has hired three former colleagues to join Proventys' management team. The company now employs 14 and is expected to hire at least another 10 in the next three to four months, Thompson said.

The software in development aims to flag cancer patients at risk for febrile neutropenia, a complication of chemotherapy that frequently requires hospitalization and can be deadly. Oncologists could prevent the complication with drug treatment if they knew which patients are likely to develop it, Thompson said.

Physicians and managed-care organizations are expected to be willing to pay for information generated by the technology.