Novartis Venture Funds, the corporate venturing unit of Switzerland-based pharmaceutical conglomerate Novartis, has led UK-based medical diagnostics company Atlas Genetics’ £16.9m ($27.6m) series B round.
The money will be drawn down over a three year period and was co-led by UK-based medical devices company Consort Medical. Other corporate venturing units taking part were Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, a subsidiary of the eponymous US-based pharmaceutical company, and BB Biotech Ventures, a division of Switzerland-based investment company BB Biotech.
The new participants were rounded out by the Netherlands-based private equity fund Life Sciences Partners (LSP).
Contributions were also made by Atlas’ prior backers, the venture fund YFM Equity Partners and fellow UK-based funds Braveheart Investment Group, the Crescent Seedcorn Fund and Wyvern Asset Management, as well as undisclosed private investors.
The UK-based investors had most recently contributed to a February round of funding, led by Consort Medical, which raised $2.4m. Funding raised by Atlas prior to the deal had totalled $8.3m, according to the Atlas Genetics website, taking its total financing to about $36m so far.
Atlas plans to use the capital to develop its Velox molecular diagnostic system, which it predicts will make laboratory-quality testing for infectious diseases available to primary care clinics and general practitioner surgeries.
Florent Gros, a managing director at Novartis Funds, said: "We have searched hard and long for novel molecular diagnostic technologies and the Velox platform is a very ingenious solution to the key issues that have hindered the development of ultra rapid and highly sensitive point-of-care molecular diagnostic instrumentation. Combined with the ability to make immunoassay tests this makes for a diversified all-in-one diagnostic platform that will be commercialized around the end of 2012."