HAYWARD, Calif., June 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Singulex, Inc. announced today it has raised $19.1 million in a private financing led by OrbiMed Advisors, LLC and joined by existing investors, Fisk Ventures, Prolog Ventures and Advantage Capital. The financing will be used to advance the scope and development of the company's commercial diagnostic solutions. Singulex's customizable assays and single molecule detection platform can monitor protein biomarkers from normal to disease levels, giving the necessary information for drug development and health care decisions. In conjunction with the financing, Singulex announced the addition of Carl Gordon, Ph.D., partner of OrbiMed, to the company's Board of Directors.
"We are in an excellent position to provide information with better clinical utility to drug developers and clinicians with the Erenna(TM) Immunoassay System by using our proprietary single molecule detection technology and disease-focused immunoassay menus. This recent financing will enable us to continue to expand our commercial efforts with the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, our diagnostic industry expertise and our intellectual property foothold in emerging diagnostic markets," said Philippe Goix, chief executive officer and president of Singulex. "We welcome Carl's expertise and investor leadership as we continue to build our programs and collaborations with pharmaceutical companies and top-tiered medical schools."
"The importance of biomarkers for both drug development and disease diagnosis continues to rise," said Carl Gordon. "We believe that Singulex's ultrasensitive immunoassay technology will be instrumental in moving the biomarker field forward."
Singulex's Erenna(TM) Immunoassay System combines proprietary direct single molecule detection technology with customized clinical assays that are capable of quantitatively detecting therapeutically significant biomarkers at sub-picogram concentration levels. Erenna(TM) has been shown to detect, at previously undetectable limits, normal cellular levels of cardiac troponin I, cTnI, a protein biomarker critical to assessing cardiac tissue damage following a heart attack. By establishing a normal concentration baseline, cTnI's clinical utility can be expanded from a confirmatory marker to an early warning marker, thereby enabling interventional therapeutic options.
About Singulex
Singulex develops and commercializes innovative technology solutions that enable disease understanding and management for life science researchers and clinicians. Utilizing proprietary quantitative single molecule detection technology, Singulex develops customized biomarker diagnostic systems that can detect and quantify normal and abnormal levels of protein biomarkers in a variety of biological samples with extreme sensitivity and accuracy. Singulex is currently conducting several pilot studies with academic and molecular diagnostic partners to validate the company's commercial digital molecule detection platform, the Erenna(TM) Immunoassay System. Singulex's research and development operations are located at the Center for Emerging Technologies in St Louis, Missouri, and the company's commercial operations are based in Hayward, California. To learn more about Singulex, please visit us at http://www.singulex.com.
About OrbiMed
OrbiMed is one of the world's largest fully-dedicated healthcare asset management firms, with over $6 billion in assets under management. Since inception of its private equity investment activities in 1993, OrbiMed has successfully made investments in over 70 companies across a wide range of therapeutic categories and stages of development. OrbiMed's investment team includes over 20 experienced professionals with backgrounds in science, medicine, finance and law. OrbiMed's professionals work together using a collaborative, team-oriented approach which has earned OrbiMed a reputation as a capital provider of choice for life sciences companies of all stages. For further information, please visit http://www.orbimed.com.
SingulexCONTACT: Jessica Yingling, Ph.D., of Porter Novelli Life Sciences,+1-619-849-5381, jyingling@pnlifesciences.com, for Singulex
