Lilly Asia Ventures, the regional corporate venturing subsidiary of pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly, led a $20m series A round yesterday for Singlera Genomics, a US-based developer of genetic testing technology.
Venture capital firm Green Pine Capital Partners and private equity firm CDBI Partners also took part in the round together with unnamed additional investors.
Founded in 2014, Singlera’s technologies revolve around single cell sequencing, bioinformatics and methylation, a process that modifies the DNA’s functioning, in order to develop products and services such as diagnosis tools for tumours, genetic diseases and non-invasive prenatal diagnosis.
The cash will let the company increase development and commercialisation of its sequencing tests for cancer and genetic diseases. Singlera will also boost its research and development efforts, and accelerate the launch of products aimed at personalised treatments and tumour diagnosis.
Fei Chen, managing partner at Lilly Asia Ventures (LAV), said: “We are very pleased to partner with Singlera Genomics to help the company continue to strive in the field of non-invasive genomic sequencing diagnoses.
“We have been very impressed with the strength of their management team, proprietary technologies and their commitment to precision medicine. With our investment and strategic resources, we look forward to working with Singlera to achieve ultimate goal of early detection and prevention of cancer and other severe diseases.”
Judith Li, partner at LAV, by email added: “Singlera’s circulating tumor cell test [is] non-invasive in that you can simply take a blood sample, versus full biopsy. LAV now invests approx 25% in med tech and diagnostics that are complementary to our biotech and pharma portfolio (in this case, because of the obvious evolution to companion diagnostics).”