US-based biotechnology company Emulate raised $17m on Thursday to close a series B round backed by hospital Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and clinical laboratory network operator LabCorp at $45m.
The fresh funding was provided by unnamed institutional and non-institutional funds as well as private investors. Emulate previously secured $28m in series B capital in March 2016 from backers including Cedars-Sinai.
LabCorp also participated in the first tranche, though at the time it was only listed as an unnamed investor, while other participants included NanoDimension, OS Fund, Atel Ventures, Leandro P Rizzuto Foundation’s ALS Finding a Cure initiative and private investor Hansjörg Wyss.
Founded in 2013, Emulate is working on organs-on-chips technology developed at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute.
The chips are the size of AA batteries and enable researchers to predict human response to diseases, drugs or foods more efficiently and accurately than is possible with traditional cell cultures or animal experiments.
The extra funding will support the translation of the technology into a commercial product. The initial tranche partly went towards that same goal, but also helped Emulate seek out strategic partnership agreements following a similar deal with pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson in June 2015.
Cedars-Sinai supported Emulate’s $12m series A round in 2014, which was led by NanoDimension. The company previously attracted more than $40m in grants from US regulator Food and Drug Administration and the country’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
James Coon, chief executive of Emulate, said: “The funding will help accelerate product development cycles, and improve product efficacy and safety across a range of industries – including pharmaceutical, chemical, food and consumer products companies.
“We are rapidly moving toward launching our Human Emulation System to the next stage of commercial development, so that our technology will operate as a plug-and-play system in the hands of product development teams and researchers around the world.”