Diagnoplex Closes CHF10 Million ($8.3 Million) Series A...( LAUSANNE Switzerland December 10 /- D...)

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, December 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Diagnoplex, a developer of molecular cancer diagnostics today announced the closing of a Series A financing raising CHF10 million ($8.3 million). The A-round was led by Novartis Venture Fund and NeoMed, with Initiative Capital Romandie acting as co-investor. The Novartis Venture Fund was also a seed investor in the company. BCCC Avocats acted as counsel to the investors and BMP Associés acted as counsel to the company.

In connection with the financing, Anja König, Ph.D., a Managing Director of Novartis Venture Fund, and Thomas Goebel, Ph.D., a Principal at NeoMed, will join Diagnoplex' board of directors, while Claude Suard, Partner at DEFI Gestion, will join the board as an observer.

Diagnoplex technology platform

Leveraging its unique and proprietary molecular platform capabilities, Diagnoplex develops blood-based cancer diagnostics. Diagnoplex' single-channel quantitative multiplex reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (scqmRT-PCR) yields the quantification of copy number obtained with real-time PCR, and allows quantifying up to 60 genes simultaneously. The scqmRT-PCR platform offers several important competitive advantages. It pairs the high accuracy and reliability of PCR with the possibility to read out multi-gene signatures of different cancers. As opposed to microarray platforms, it is easily scalable and can be run in most standard testing laboratories. Stavros Therianos, PhD, founder and chief executive officer of Diagnoplex, developed the platform during his tenure at Rochester University, NY.

Diagnoplex lead product - Colox

Diagnoplex will use the proceeds from the financing to support the further clinical development of its lead product Colox, a non-invasive test for the early detection of colon cancer, which will be made available as a ready-to-use clinical laboratory kit. Early result
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