Accumetrics Adds $7 Million in Venture Funding, Plans to Reach Profitability

San Diego-based Accumetrics says today it has raised an additional $7 million as part of a Series E venture round that was announced last October, when the biomedical diagnostics company raised about $16.5 million. The company says it has closed out the round after raising $24 million altogether.

The latest funding brings the total capital invested in Accumetrics to roughly $75 million since founder Robert Hillman reacquired the core technology and restarted the company in 2003. Accumetrics says it expects to reach profitability with this latest capital infusion. Accumetrics says the $7 million in funding came primarily from its existing investors, which include: The BBT Fund/Apothecary Capital of Chicago; Oakland, CA-based Kaiser Permanente Ventures; St. Louis, MO-based RiverVest Venture Partners; Portland, OR-based Arnerich Massena & Associates; and Palo Alto, CA-based Essex Woodland Health Ventures.

Accumetrics makes an automated diagnostic instrument called VerifyNow to help doctors calibrate the dosages they prescribe of anti-clotting drugs such as aspirin, clopidogrel (Plavix), abciximab (ReoPro), and eptifibatide (Integrillin). Accumetrics designed the desktop unit for use by doctors in clinics and medical offices. Because patient response varies widely, the test gives doctors a quick way of assessing whether the dosage they’ve prescribed is working as intended. This matters because if an anti-clotting drug is a little too effective, and makes the blood too thin, it can cause certain patients to suffer bleeding episodes.

In the company’s statement, CEO Timothy Still says the closure of the fifth round of financing demonstrates the venture firms’ “unwavering confidence” in Accumetrics. He adds, “We are excited to be positioned at the forefront of a major market shift in the healthcare sector where medical diagnostics will play a greater role in personalizing patient treatment.”

Accumetrics says proceeds from the financing will be used to help pay for development of next-generation technology, clear regulatory hurdles, and continue its expansion of global commercialization efforts.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.