Date: 2011-05-17
Type of information: Fundraising
Company: Curetis (Germany)
Investors: aeris Capital - LSP Life Sciences Partners (The Netherlands) - BioMedInvest (Switzerland) - KfW (Germany) - CD-Venture (Germany) - Private investors
Amount: € 24.5 million
Funding type: series A venture equity investment round
Planned used: Following the appointment of Oliver Schacht, PhD, as the new CEO of Curetis last month, this financing transaction is the first step towards funding next year’s commercial launch and roll-out of the Unyvero® product platform together with the first CE marked IVD test cartridge for pneumonia and antibiotic resistances in Europe. The additional funds will allow Curetis to pursue a more aggressive strategy towards initiating a US clinical trial in H2-2011 with a goal of filing for FDA approval in 2012.
Others: The Curetis Unyvero platform solution will enable rapid multi-parameter pathogen and antibiotic resistance detection within only a few hours - a process that can take up to several days with currently available technologies. This platform is a versatile hardware platform for the detection of a broad panel of bacteria and antibiotic resistances from a single sample in one run. It processes a disposable cartridge providing the necessary reagents to complete the analysis from sample to result. The platform enables the DNA-based testing of all clinically relevant samples in a fully automated, unsupervised analysis process requiring only few, quick manual preparation steps. The analysis thus can be performed with minimal operator time and without the need of skilled staff or special infrastructure.Thereby, clinical information is available within a few hours to support an informed therapy decision as early as possible. The first Unyvero cartridge, Unyvero P50, focuses on pathogen as well as antibiotic resistance testing for pneumonia and simultaneously analyses more than 40 DNA targets. Cartridges for further applications, e.g. for surgical site infections, blood stream infections and tuberculosis, are in preparation.
To date, Curetis has raised total funds of over € 27 million (~ USD 40 million). The company is based in Holzgerlingen near Stuttgart, Germany.
Therapeutic area: Technology - Services - Infectious diseases
