Posted 18 November 2011
Biosensia, a spin-in company based at NovaUCD, secures €1.2 million investment
Biosensia has secured €1.2 million in funding to advance CE mark and FDA regulatory approval for its point of care diagnostic products in Europe and the US, and advance its commercial partnership strategy.
The independent, venture capital funded company, is a spin-in company headquartered at NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre at University College Dublin. It intends to increase staff numbers by 10 within the next two-years as part of its commercialisation strategy.
Pictured far right: Diarmuid Flavin, CEO of Biosensia
“This is an exciting time in Biosensia. Our commercialisation plans and technology are progressing rapidly. With this financing, the company can further capitalise on its revolutionary RapiPlex technology. We see a significant market demand across a range of diagnostic applications for our RapiPlex platform,” said Diarmuid Flavin, CEO, Biosensia.
"We are delighted to have ACT Venture Capital as a new investor in Biosensia as well as the continued support of Seroba and Atlantic Bridge. We have a great product and this investment will allow us to complete regulatory requirements in the US and Europe, and seek partners to expand into new market opportunities.”
Biosensia’s platform, RapiPlex, is a novel, user-friendly, cost effective, multiplexing point of care in vitro diagnostics platform. It enables the transition of complex immunoassays from the central laboratory to the point of care across a wide variety of sample types. RapiPlex has multiple point of care applications including medical, environmental, food safety and security.
RapiPlex can perform up to 12 separate analyses simultaneously on a single sample and provides test results in as little as 5 minutes. The RapiPlex platform is also integrated with an optical reader which provides a numerical read-out, which does not require user interpretation.
The funding round was led by ACT Venture Capital, through its AIB Start-up Accelerator Fund, and included existing investors Seroba BioVentures and Atlantic Bridge.
“The RapiPlex platform has huge potential across a broad range of applications, making this a great investment opportunity for ACT. We look forward to working with the Biosensia team as they progress to commercialisation,” said John O’Sullivan, Director, ACT Venture Capital.
NovaUCD, the Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre, is the hub of innovation and knowledge transfer activities at University College Dublin. NovaUCD is responsible for the commercialisation of intellectual property arising from UCD research and for the development of co-operation with industry and business.
As a purpose-built centre, NovaUCD also nurtures high-tech and knowledge-intensive ‘spin-in’ enterprises such as Biosensia. NovaUCD has been funded through a unique public-private partnership that includes AIB Bank, Arthur Cox, Deloitte, Enterprise Ireland, Ericsson, Goodbody Stockbrokers, UCD and Xilinx. www.ucd.ie/nova
(Produced by UCD University Relations)
