Myconostica Ltd Closes Oversubscribed $7.7 Million Round and Establishes US Headquarters in Charleston
Charleston, SC and Manchester UK– Myconostica Ltd, a Manchester UK-based medical diagnostic company specializing in rapid and highly specific tests for life-threatening fungal infections, today announces that it has closed an $7.7 million (£3.9M) oversubscribed round of financing from a number of leading international private equity investors. The new funds will be used to launch the company’s first two products and establish new US headquarters in Charleston, SC. Over 10 million people are at risk of invasive fungal infections in Europe andNorth America each year. This number is increasing rapidly with the largegrowth in patients whose treatments involves transplants and/or the use ofimmuno-suppressive drugs, leaving them susceptible to fungal infection. Currentdiagnostic methods are too slow and non-specific for optimal patient care.
Myconostica which was formed in 2006 as a spin out from the University of Manchester, is developing and commercializing tests based on highly specific genetic “signatures’ unique to each disease and allow faster and much moreprecise diagnosis. These “molecular diagnostics” are simple and can detectmultiple fungi in a single process. The completion of the series C financing was led by Nexus Medical Partners (Boston and Charleston) and also featured Innoven Partenaires (France), the principal international investors joining existing investor Amphion Innovations (AIM: AMP-L) in the round. This second close brings the total raised, in the current Series C financing, to approximately $8.6 Million (£4.4 M). The capital raised in this round of financing will support the launch of Myconostica’s first two products. The first product is the world’s first real-time molecular diagnostic simultaneously testing for both Aspergillus and Pneumocystis. The second product is a fungal DNA extraction system. The diagnostic product, announced at the Trends in Medical Mycology meeting in Turin in October 2007, is CE marked, which enables sales in Europe and several other territories. The investment will also allow development of further diagnostic tests in the FXG series targeting other critical fungal infections. Myconostica will be applying to the FDA for regulatory approval to launch the products in the US market.
Following the latest fund raising, Myconostica are also pleased to announce the opening of its US headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina. The new office, Myconostica’s first outside of the UK, will be the focus for North American operations and was chosen after careful review of alternative locations. South Carolina has a growing cluster of medtech and biotech industry. Gregory Zaic, Nexus’s senior partner in charge of Nexus’s Charleston office, introduced the company to key clinicians at MUSC, thanks to suggestions by MUSC’s president, Dr. Ray Greenberg. The company is establishing clinical cooperation with members of the MUSC faculty. The location of Myconostica’s US office is being facilitated by the City Of Charleston’s Life Science Initiative (of which Nexus is a supporter). Nexus is one of the four venture capital firms to receive state sponsored funding under the South Carolina Venture Capital Investment Act.
