The Cambridge biotechnology company has raised £31.4m from investors including M&G and Amadeus Capital Partners to advance its desktop protein printer.
"There’s a fundamental productivity problem in biotech today. A biotech scientist needs to know how to make proteins to design drugs. That’s like expecting a computer scientist to know how to build a computer to design software,"
The funding round was led by MMC Ventures alongside Ataraxia, Acequia Capital, and notable angels.
"C the Signs is great for managing our cancer risk. I ran a middle-aged chap through the tool and followed the advice to order a chest x-ray and later sent a 2-week-wait referral to respiratory. It led to a lung cancer diagnosis, and he has since been operated on and doing well."
The financing was co-ordinated by WG Partners to support analytical platform expansion and new therapeutics programmes.
"The investor interest we have seen is an indication of the appetite for AI-enabled precision medicines and the innovation of our unique analytical platform for mining patient data."
The financing round was co-led by Netherton Investments and Dompé farmaceutici.
"Our mission is to improve people’s lives and we partner with the best academic and industrial groups to accelerate the research that will bring new solutions to patients’ unmet needs. We look forward to working with the Engitix team to combine the power of Exscalate with Engitix’s deep understanding of the biology of the fibrosis and solid tumours microenvironment and the unique strength of its ECM platform. Our collaboration will enable us to accelerate the clinical translation of targets beyond our four key in-house therapeutic areas of ophthalmology, metabolic disorders, oncology, and pain management."
The investment was led by BGF and Parkwalk to support pre-clinical work, clinical trials, and regulatory approval.
"There are over three million dialysis patients worldwide and every year patients undergo nearly 650,000 surgical AVF creation procedures. However, these procedures take a long time to heal and are prone to failure. Our technology has the power to significantly improve the outcomes for dialysis patients, improving their quality of life and saving millions of pounds in the process. We are delighted to have the support of BGF and Parkwalk to help the business move forward with our clinical trials and ultimately roll-out this ground-breaking product to a global market."