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.”
Author: Wade Roush
Between 2007 and 2014, I was a staff editor for Xconomy in Boston and San Francisco.
Since 2008 I've been writing a weekly opinion/review column called VOX: The Voice of Xperience. (From 2008 to 2013 the column was known as World Wide Wade.)
I've been writing about science and technology professionally since 1994. Before joining Xconomy in 2007, I was a staff member at MIT’s Technology Review from 2001 to 2006, serving as senior editor, San Francisco bureau chief, and executive editor of TechnologyReview.com. Before that, I was the Boston bureau reporter for Science, managing editor of supercomputing publications at NASA Ames Research Center, and Web editor at e-book pioneer NuvoMedia.
I have a B.A. in the history of science from Harvard College and a PhD in the history and social study of science and technology from MIT. I've published articles in Science, Technology Review, IEEE Spectrum, Encyclopaedia Brittanica, Technology and Culture, Alaska Airlines Magazine, and World Business, and I've been a guest of NPR, CNN, CNBC, NECN, WGBH and the PBS NewsHour. I'm a frequent conference participant and enjoy opportunities to moderate panel discussions and on-stage chats.
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