Biocartis SA, a Lausanne, Switzerland-based biotech company active in the field of personalized medicine and focused on molecular diagnostics, closed its €30m (approximately $41.3m) Series B equity financing round.
The company raised the funding from its current shareholder base of life science investors and two new strategic investors from the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industry.
New investors include the Debiopharm Group(TM) (Lausanne, Switzerland) and Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC), each thus obtaining a minority stake in Biocartis. The round was also underwritten by Aescap, Biocartis’ original lead-investor (The Netherlands), Biovest (Belgium), Advent Venture Partners (United Kingdom), several Biocartis employees and Benaruca, the family investment vehicle of Biocartis’ co-founder Rudi Pauwels.
The company has developed and licensed a series of new technologies to build a broadly applicable new diagnostics platform for low to highly multiplexed detection, quantification, and amplification of molecular-based biomarkers, including nucleic acids, proteins, and small molecules. Following its recent acquisition of the Philips’ technology for rapid and fully automated DNA/RNA molecular diagnostic testing, Biocartis will use the funds to complete the development and validation of the first version of its proprietary micro-technology and sample preparation platform.
Dr. Pietro Scalfaro, from Debiopharm, has joined the board of directors of the company, now chaired by Dinko Valerio from Aescap.
In October 2009, Biocartis announced it had closed its €10m ($14.9m) Series A equity financing.
Founded in 2007, Biocartis is based at the EPFL Science Park in Lausanne, Switzerland and at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, The Netherlands (photo).
FinSMEs
08/04/2010