Biological has right DNA for $26.8m

Biological Dynamics, a spinout of University of California at San Diego, has secured $26.8m to commercialise its lab-on-chip molecular diagnostics technology.

In a release, the firm said that the lead investor was “a large institutional investor associated with a major university”, but did not disclose any further information. The investor was joined by Heritage Group, Alexandria Venture Investment, and Irwin Jacobs, the co-founder of Qualcomm.

A candidate for the unnamed investor could be UC Ventures, a $250m university venturing fund established last year with $250m to invest in California system spinouts across all of its campuses, or potentially university investment consortium Osage University Partners, of which San Diego is a partner, although Osage normally reveals its participation in deals.

Biological is pioneering the use of alternating current electrokinetics in molecular diagnostics, which is used on its lab-on-chip platform, Trace, to isolate nanoparticles in substances such as blood without the need to dilution and speeds up the process. The process facilitates faster analysis of what treatments a cancer patient requires.

Raj Krishnan, CEO of Biological Dynamics, said: “We are grateful for the enthusiastic response from our new institutional investor and the continued support from our existing ones. Treatment response monitoring (TRM) is a key piece of patient care. We believe Trace will resolve many limitations of existing TRM toolsets, enabling doctors and patients to navigate cancer care with greater clarity. The new funding will help us to execute on our regulatory strategy and to bring Trace to the clinic.”