Exer More Than Urgent Care plans to open additional locations and has hired a new chief executive, Rob Mahan, to lead its management team in the expansion. The Encino-based chain of urgent care clinics currently has five locations in Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Newbury Park, Northridge and Sherman Oaks. Exer is either in the permitting or construction phase for each of its three new sites in Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach and Santa Clarita. The company’s business model is based on the notion that it can provide emergency room level services to about 60 to 70 percent of emergency room patients for a fraction of the cost at more convenient locations, according to Mahan. He attributes this as the reason the company is expanding so quickly. He said Exer is filling a need in the market by providing specialty services that can’t be offered at a physician’s office as well as emergency room services to people who don’t have threatening conditions that warrant an emergency room visit. “As Exer has found good patient response, we realized we were ready to grow this,” Mahan said. “They wanted someone who had experience growing multi-site health care companies, and I am honored to help expand that vision.” In his new position, Mahan said he will work on preserving Exer’s company culture and goals as they grow from five to eight sites and beyond. Another factor that has contributed to the company’s success is its relationship with Providence Health & Services, which has three Valley locations — Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and Providence Tarzana Medical Center. The Renton, Wash.-based health system is a major investor in Exer, which opened its first site in 2013. Providence has partnered with the clinics to refer patients to each other with the goal of decompressing emergency rooms and providing additional care options at a lower cost. Mayo Patient Tower Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital in Valencia recently broke ground on its new $151 million patient tower, slated to open in the early part of 2019, pending state licensing. The six-story, 160,000-square-foot building will hold 142 additional patient beds, private rooms as well as a new women’s services unit with antepartum/postpartum beds, labor and delivery beds and two cesarean section operating suites. In addition, the new tower will have a rooftop helipad with direct emergency department access, three new surgical units, expanded laboratory and materials management departments and a new kitchen and dining facilities. “We have a high demand for medical services here, especially during the peak of flu season,” said Patrick Moody, director of marketing and public relations for the hospital. “We sometimes struggle with having enough beds to serve our patients. So, there is a big demand for increased capacity and we are grateful for the opportunity to meet that demand.” Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital was built more than 40 years ago and originally had 99 beds. The patient tower is part of the independent nonprofit hospital’s approved master plan to meet the rising health care needs of the Santa Clarita Valley. Biotech Receives Funding Akriveia Therapeutics, a Thousand Oaks-based biotech focused on immuno-oncology, received a $7.5 million Series-A investment from F-Prime Capital Partners of Cambridge, Mass. As part of the deal, F-Prime’s Ben Auspitz and Thomas Beck will join Akriveia’s board, and Beck will serve as chairman. The company utilizes proprietary technology to create treatments that boost the body’s immune system to fight cancer. Similar medications typically activate the patient’s natural defense mechanism to attack cancer cells as well as healthy tissue, creating other health concerns. However, Akriveia’s platform specifically targets the tumor, or cancer site, and as a result, the company hopes to treat more patients with its immunotherapeutics for longer periods of time minus the debilitating side effects. In addition to its recent investment, the company also announced that it has entered into exclusive technology licensing agreements with nonprofit public benefit corporation City of Hope of Duarte and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. “We are thrilled to be joined on our mission to develop the next generation of immunotherapeutics by the world-class team at F-Prime, and to have entered into the agreements with City of Hope and Thomas Jefferson University,” said Akriveia Chief Executive Simon Tomlinson. “The financing will help us attract talented leaders and innovators to drive our therapeutic discovery efforts and to build a pipeline of best-in-class single agent and combination immunotherapeutics.” Staff Reporter Stephanie Henkel can be reached at (818) 316-3130 or [email protected].
