A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Diagnoplex (Lausanne, Switzerland), a developer of molecular cancer diagnostics, reported the closing of a Series A financing raising CHF 10 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 served as counsel to the investors and BMP Associates as counsel to the company.

Diagnoplex develops blood-based cancer diagnostics. The company said its 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, the company noted. 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, Diagnoplex said.

Stavros Therianos, PhD, founder/CEO of Diagnoplex, developed the platform during his tenure at Rochester University (Rochester, New York).

Diagnoplex said it would 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 results obtained in a training set of 140 patients have shown that the power of the molecular platform allows Colox to detect even the pre-cancerous stage of adenoma. Early detection and intervention by colonoscopy can have an important impact on the epidemiology of colon cancer, one of the main causes of cancer related mortality in the western world. It is estimated that survival rates improve to 90% when colorectal cancer is detected early, the company noted.

"We are excited to welcome a high quality group of investors and look forward to working with this outstanding syndicate to bring powerful new cancer screening approaches to bear on the early detection of cancer," Therianos said.

In other financing activity:

• Life Science Intelligence (LSI; Huntington Beach, California) said that another new group of 58 mostly privately-held med-tech companies has recently been added to the Emerging Medical Technologies (EMT) database: www.emergingmedicaltechnologies.com.

According to LSI, this latest round of companies is collectively seeking more than $250 million ($0.5 million angel, $55.3 million Series A, $17.5 million Series B, $37.2 million Series C, $140 million undisclosed). Many of the companies also are actively pursuing strategic partnerships and licensing deals with large med-tech companies, LSI noted.

LSI said its EMT database provides medical technology executives and venture capitalists with a searchable online resource allowing them to discover, partner, and capitalize on opportunities in emerging med-tech start-up companies. Most of the companies in the database include executive summaries and presentations.

Start-ups in the EMT database represent many market segments, including: aesthetics, biomaterials, biotechnology, cardiovascular, cell therapy, dental, dermatology, diagnostics, drug delivery, endocrine, gastroenterology, gynecology, imaging, men's health, neurology, oncology, ophthalmology, orthopedics, pain management, patient monitoring, respiratory, spine, surgery, urology, vascular, women's health, and wound management.

• Endoscopic Technologies (Estech; San Ramon, California) reported that in September it closed on an $11.2 million first tranche of a planned $20 million in equity financing. Saints Capital Everest, a preeminent secondary direct investment firm, led the financing. Also participating in the first tranche were existing investors Telegraph Hill Partners and Waveland Venture Partners.

The company also reported that it has appointed John Pavlidis as president/CEO and Terry Kinninger as CFO/COO. Pavlidis was previously president/CEO of R2 Technology, a developer in computer-aided detection technology for mammography and lung CT scanning. Kinninger has more than 25 years of executive experience managing emerging venture capital-backed medical device and technology companies. He was more recently CFO and executive VP of business development for R2 Technology and COO/CFO of Bridge Medical.

Estech says it is a pioneer in the field of minimally invasive cardiac surgery and RF surgical ablation, and also is a supplier of least invasive valve surgery and CABG products.