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Fundraisings and IPOs

Date: 2011-10-18

Type of information: Fundraising

Company: Population Genetics (UK)

Investors:

Amount: $5.7 million (€4.15 million)

Funding type:

Planned used:

These funds are intended to enable completion of several ongoing biological validations of the Company\'s technology, setting the stage for a future major financing aimed at making that technology broadly available. The Population Genetics proprietary technology evolved from ideas proposed by its co-founder, Nobel Laureate Sydney Brenner. It exploits the power and efficiency of next generation DNA sequencers which it enables to interrogate simultaneously for sequence information, sets of suspected candidate genes in hundreds, if not thousands of genomes. It is thus expected to facilitate greatly both the identification and statistical validation of sequence variants associated with phenotypic traits, be they disease pre-dispositions or drug responses in medicine, or even, soon, important agronomic plant traits. Population Genetics has already initiated a number of studies aimed at validating its technology.One, a collaborative study with researchers at Cardiff University, aims to analyze a number of suspected genes in both a population of 1,000 patients suffering late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and a population of 500 age-matched controls. Funded by a Translation Award from the Wellcome Trust, the study has also been augmented with additional funding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) of the UK. Another study with Quintiles, follows a genome-wide association study supported by a large pharmaceutical company in a population of renal cancer patients. Yet other collaborative studies, with several oncologists in different parts of the UK, investigate the efficacy of chemotherapy protocols in large populations of patients affected by breast cancer or childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.

Others:

Population Genetics has closed a $5.7 million Series B financing round intended to enable completion of several ongoing biological validations of the Company\'s technology, setting the stage for a future major financing aimed at making that technology broadly available. 
Founded on 2nd April, 2005, Population Genetics Technologies Limited is located at the Babraham Research Campus, near Cambridge, UK, and has developed a novel approach for the rapid identification of rare genetic variants in large populations of interest. This approach represents a significant advancement in the identification and utilisation of genetic biomarkers, which are fundamental to the development of personalised medicine.

Therapeutic area: Technology - Services

Is general: Yes