What do the world-champion Boston Red Sox have to do with personal health and wellness? Well, besides being the feel-good story of the year, the team’s nutritionist Tara Mardigan also works with a local health tech startup.
Cambridge-based Segterra develops web-based software that makes personal recommendations on diet and lifestyle to improve health and performance. The company analyzes blood samples for “biomarkers” such as enzyme and vitamin levels. But as far as the hometown team is concerned, Mardigan’s advice to the players this postseason has been decidedly low-tech: Eat healthy, get more sleep, and cut down on Facebook and video games.
In other innovation news …
— Dimension Therapeutics is a new biotech startup, backed by Fidelity, that’s going after rare diseases using gene therapy. The Cambridge company’s first program will be a treatment for hemophilia.
— Our startup of the week is Billerica-based Harvest Automation. The agricultural robot company has raised close to $12 million in new venture funding as it looks to help greenhouses and shrub farms become more efficient.
— And finally, bad news comes in threes for local biotechs. Ariad Pharmaceuticals has pulled its leukemia drug off the market; Merrimack’s drug for ovarian cancer has missed its goal in a clinical trial; and Vertex is cutting 15 percent of its workforce, about 175 jobs in Massachusetts. We’ll see if November is any kinder to the industry.
