Xagenic Inc. Adds BDC Capital to Close Series B Funding Round

Xagenic Canada Inc., a Toronto-based developer of diagnostic technology, has topped up a Series B round of funding to a total of $25.5 million. The new partner in this round is BDC Capital, a subsidiary of the Business Development Bank of Canada, a senior managing partner from which will be joining Xagenic’s board of directors.

“We are delighted to add BDC Capital to our syndicate of top tier investors, and we are grateful for the continued commitment and support from our existing investors,” said Bruce Cohen, Xagenic’s Executive Chairman. “I am very pleased to welcome Dion Madsen to Xagenic’s Board of Directors.”

Xagenic has been developing a diagnostic platform, the purpose of which is to move molecular diagnostics from the lab to the point-of-care. The company’s AuRA platform uses patent protected nanostructured microelectrodes to permit enzyme-free detection of nucleic acids near the patient, bypassing the need for time-consuming lab tests.

Xagenic plans analytical and clinical studies later this year, to continue the development of its diagnostic platform, with the aim of reducing testing time to 20 minutes without the need for samples to leave the physician’s office, potentially providing a significant advantage in patient care. The technology promises a combination of reduction in diagnostic turnaround times and increase in profit margins.

Xagenic’s platform is still in beta, with an expectation to launch in 2015 or 2016.

Xagenic’s X1 system is a cartridge-based, point-of-care platform focusing on testing for infectious diseases, such as flu, strep and upper respiratory infections. A greater objective perhaps is to focus on a looming public health threat, that of antimicrobial resistance. The growing resistance of superbugs has been all over the news recently, and is widely tapped as being the next great threat, as infectious diseases evolve to resist even our most highly developed antibiotics.

“Xagenic has developed a truly revolutionary diagnostic platform that will drive molecular testing out of the high complexity lab and to the point-of-care,” said Bruce Cohen, Executive Chair at Xagenic.  “The cost of adoption of the Xagenic platform is more than an order of magnitude lower than that of any other molecular diagnostic platform, which will finally make molecular testing approachable for physician offices and clinics.”

Xagenic Inc. raised $10 million in Series A funding in January of 2012, followed by $20 million in Series B funding in December 2013. Investors have included CTI Life Sciences Fund, the Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation, QIAGEN N.V., and Domain Associates, LLC.

In May, Xagenic Inc. received the 2014 Best Practices Award from Frost & Sullivan for new product innovation leadership.