Progenity Raises $125M to Expand Diagnostics for Women’s Health

Vials of blood

Progenity, a San Diego molecular diagnostics company focused on women’s health, reproductive medicine, and oncology, has raised $125 million in a Series B financing led by New York’s Athyrium Capital Management, an earlier investor. The financing marks one of the biggest life sciences deal involving a San Diego company this year.

Proceeds from the financing, which comprises both equity and debt, will be used to develop molecular diagnostics, precision therapeutics, and related microbiome analytics and consumer information on health nutrition, according to a company statement Tuesday. The company says it has developed a portfolio of diagnostic tests for pre-eclampsia, genetic carrier testing, inheritable cancer genetics, liquid biopsy, and noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT).

Progenity operates a CLIA-certified laboratory in Ann Arbor, MI, licensed in California and five other states to provide testing services, according to the company’s website.

In its statement, Progenity executive chairman and founder Harry Stylli says proceeds from the financing also “will be used to enhance our menu and service offerings to our physician clients in the prenatal and broader women’s health market on a national scale.”

Athyrium founder and managing partner Jeffrey Ferrell also is quoted in the statement as saying, “With this financing, we believe that the company will be well capitalized to execute on its internal pipeline and business development opportunities.” At the end of September, Athyrium had over $3.5 billion of assets under management.

Progenity was incorporated in 2012 as Ascendant MDX, and raised $13.5 million in a Series A financing, according to a 2013 filing. In 2015, Progenity acquired Palo Alto, CA-based Carmenta Bioscience, which had developed a prenatal diagnostic for preeclampsia that is based on a simple blood test.

Progenity represents a comeback for executive chairman Stylli, who was fired from his previous diagnostics company, San Diego-based Sequenom, amid accusations of mishandling data related to a noninvasive prenatal test for Down syndrome. LabCorp (NYSE: [[ticker:LH]]) acquired Sequenom just over a year ago in a deal valued at $302 million.

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.