Precision Therapeutics (NSDQ:AIPT), formerly known as Skyline Medical, said today it converted a previous $500,000 loan with Helomics into a 5% equity stake, bringing the company’s ownership in Helomics up to 25%.
In January, Minneapolis, Minn.-based Precision Therapeutics purchased preferred stock in Pittsburgh, Penn.-based Helomics convertible into a 20% stake.
Helomics developed and maintains the D-Chip database which contains de-identified data from clinical tests of tumor responses to drugs and uses artificial intelligence powered bioinformatics to generate insights from the data, Precision Therapeutics said.
“We are pleased to increase our equity stake in Helomics as we rapidly advance our strategy to position Precision Therapeutics as a leading provider of CRO and diagnostic services to the precision medicine market. Our aim is to facilitate the development of personalized cancer treatments by bringing together some of the most advanced bioinformatics and artificial intelligence technologies on the market, and applying them to the fast-growing precision medicine space. We will leverage Helomics’s proprietary D–Chip AI platform, which contains the drug response profiles of over 149,000 patient tumors, in collaboration with our next generation patient derived TumorGenesis tumor models, to provide actionable insights for clients in the pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and biotech sectors. We intend to build out the D–Chip’s high-quality data set in order to drive new client agreements, improve patient outcomes and grow revenues,” Precision Therapeutics CEO Dr. Carl Schwartz said in a press release.
In January, Precision Therapeutics announced it would part from its previous Skyline Medical moniker, effective Feb. 1. The change was intended to reflect the company’s “new strategic focus on applying artificial intelligence to precision medicine and drug delivery.”
