Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, the in-house venture arm of the US-based consumer and medical goods maker, has linked up again with venture capital firm De Novo Ventures and joined the second round of financing for Astute Medical, a San Diego-based medical diagnostics company focused on high-risk conditions.
Astute raised $26.5m in series B funding in a round led by VCs Domain Associates and Delphi Ventures. JJDC joined for the first time while De Novo returned having previously invested $6.25m in Astute in May 2008.
De Novo had been an early backer of the Astute founders’ previous company, Biosite, which was sold to Inverness Medical Innovations in mid-2007 for $1.7bn. De Novo had raised $100m for its first fund in 2000 and then raised $250m for its second in 2004, out of the latter it co-invested alongside JJDC in InSound Medical, a Californian developer of hearing aid technology, according to news provider VentureWire.
Astute said it would use the funding to advance research and development aimed at the identification and validation of protein biomarkers with the goal of commercializing diagnostic products.
Founded in 2007, Astute is led by Christopher Hibberd and Dr Paul McPherson, previously senior vice president corporate development and vice president research and development at Biosite, respectively.