Friday, September 23, 2011

Prolacta Links With National Milk Bank

Monrovia-based Prolacta Bioscience, the venture-backed provider of human milk-based fortifiers for premature infants, said today that it has inked a deal with the National Milk Bank, where the firm will process all of the milk through the bank for conversion into human milk formulations. According to Prolacta, the National Milk Bank will recruit potential breast milk donors for Prolacta. Financial details of the affiliation were not disclosed. Prolacta has been developing processes which process human milk, and convert that into human milk fortifier which helps prevent medical issues often encountered by feeding premature babies with cow-based fortifiers. The company's products are particularly well suited for critically ill, premature babies in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), and specifically to avoid issues with necrotizing enterocolitis, a potentially fatal complication occurring in premature infants. Prolacta is venture backed by Alta Partners, Arcturus Capital, DFJ Frontier, DFJ Mercury Venture Partners, Draper Associates, Draper Richards, Funk Ventures, Gideon Hixon Fund, and Philip Capital.

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