Life Sciences, VC, deals
PrimeraDx Raises $20 Million More for Molecular Diagnostics Tool
Wade Roush 9/21/09
PrimeraDx, a four-year-old startup in Mansfield, MA, said today it has closed a $20 million Series C financing round to continue work on automated lab equipment that, according to the company, could vastly speed up a host of medical tests.
New investor CHL Medical Partners of Stamford, CT, led the round. Existing investors Abingworth, Burrill & Company, InterWest Partners, the Invus Group, Malaysian Technology Development Corporation, and MPM Capital also participated. PrimeraDx, also known as Primera Biosystems, has now raised roughly $55 million in all, including a $21 million B round in January 2008 and a $1.15 million debt funding round earlier this month.
PrimeraDx, a spinoff of Providence, RI-based Sention, is developing a machine called “ICEPlex” that can measure the quantities of up to 60 separate disease-related DNA or RNA sequences in a single biological sample. The company says the device can, for example, determine a patient’s “viral load”—or the amount of a particular virus circulating the the patient’s bloodstreams—within about 3 hours, compared to 7 to 10 days for conventional techniques.
In a statement, CHL partner Ronald Lennox said PrimeraDX is “positioned to dominate” the market for such equipment, and he called the startup “an excellent investment opportunity.”
Wade Roush is Xconomy's chief correspondent. You can e-mail him at wroush@xconomy.com, call him at (617) 252-7323, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/wroush.
