TORONTO (January 30, 2012) – Xagenic Inc., a start-up company created by Dr. Shana Kelley, in partnership with MaRS Innovation, today reached a significant milestone by successfully completing series A financing totaling $10 million.
The financing comes from sources from the private and public sector including CTI Life Sciences Fund L.P., Qiagen N.V. and the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation through its Emerging Technologies Fund.
“MI is proud that our first portfolio investment and first spin‐off has reached such an important milestone in its evolution,” said Raphael Hofstein, president and CEO of MaRS Innovation. “With more than $12.2 million in funding secured to date, and in such a short period of time, it’s clear that there’s tremendous excitement behind Xagenic’s breakthrough diagnostic technology and its potential benefits to patient care.”
Current diagnostic tests on the market are complex, time-consuming and require skilled laboratory technicians. Xagenic employs its patented nanostructured microelectrodes to achieve highly sensitive nucleic acid sensors that detect DNA and RNA at record-breaking speed.
This technology allows clinicians to detect pathogens in less than 30 minutes and can be done at the point-of-care, such as in either a physician’s office or at a patient’s bedside.
For patients, a quicker diagnosis of conditions ranging from infectious disease to cancer can mean less anxiety and faster treatment decisions.
“In today’s highly competitive economy, the success in attracting significant investment to Xagenic is a clear signal that Toronto is an outstanding place to incubate ideas, find discoveries and commercialize our successes,” said Dr. Kelley, chief technical officer and founder of Xagenic Inc. “This investment in Xagenic means that we can advance our plans to commercialize this technology, create dynamic jobs and fuel the research economy.”
Since its establishment in 2010, Toronto‐based Xagenic has secured funding from several leading, Canadian‐based organizations including: MaRS Innovation, the MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund, HTX, The Health Technology Exchange, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and the Ontario Centres of Excellence (Centre for Commercialization of Research).
About Xagenic Canada Inc.
Founded in 2010 and based in Toronto, life sciences company Xagenic is pioneering a cutting-edge, chip- based diagnostic screening technology that uses nanotechnology-based microelectrodes. This technology, based on intellectual property from Boston College and the University of Toronto, was founded scientist and Professor Dr. Shana Kelley. The technology is being developed to address a large clinical unmet need: rapid, on‐demand, sample-to-answer detection of pathogens in less than 30 minutes.