CompanDX, a spinout from Nottingham Trent University applying novel bio-informatics technology to personalised medicine, has raised £3.9m for the development of products in China.
‘This is an extraordinary step for an early stage technology company and allows us to put a significant capital sum to work,’ says CompanDX chief executive Simon Haworth.
‘The China deal provides a shop window for how our technology can be applied in a diagnostic setting and helps us prove the viability of our technology platform to potential pharma and mid-cap partners interested in patient stratification for clinical trial purposes.’
Both government and private sources are providing the cash on a non-dilutive basis. They will receive a proportion of downstream revenue from successful products sold in China, rather than equity in the company.
The firm says the pace of product development in China is accelerated compared with the UK and US markets owing to the nature of the regulatory regime, and the willingness of major regional Science Parks to provide funding for development of products relevant to the Chinese market.
Details of the CompanDX China office will be released shortly.
Dr Glenn Crocker, chief executive of BioCity Nottingham, comments: ‘The recent paucity of early stage funding in our sector has stifled expansion and potential growth for companies at a critical stage of their development, but CompanDX has shown great initiative in sourcing finance this way. Several of our other fast-growing companies could learn from this model, so we will watch the CompanDX development with interest.’
CompanDX says it expects to generate revenue from approved products in under three years.
CompanDX was established in 2009 by two professors from Nottingham Trent University, originally focused on oncology. This year the management team re-focused the business beyond oncology to wider applications in the fast-growing field of personalised medicine through drug re-development and trial involvement for all major indications.