Belfast-based cancer diagnosis company GenoME Diagnostics has closed a £1.4m funding round that will go towards further development of its lead product, OvaME, a novel blood test for earlier, more accurate detection of ovarian cancer.
GenoME previously raised a pre-seed round of £300,000 in 2021, which was used to progress OvaME through technical, commercial and regulatory milestones.
The £1.4m funding round will allow the company to complete the testing phase, file for EU regulatory approval and expand its regulatory approach to the UK and North America.
It will also enable GenoME to extend its novel technology to additional cancer types and to consider further research into additional disease areas, and the company will seek to add staff in sales and marketing as well as laboratory scientists.
The funding round was supported by QUBIS, the commercialisation arm of Queen’s University Belfast; Co-Fund NI, managed by Clarendon Fund Managers; and Deepbridge Capital.
In Association with
The round also includes an additional £500,000 InnovateUK Biomedical Catalyst grant for a project in collaboration with QUB, which will be used to continue the development of a novel blood test for earlier detection of additional cancer types.
“At GenoME, we are aiming to improve patient survival and quality of life through affordable and highly accurate tests. This is a significant funding round for us and will help to further develop these life-changing products," said Dr Sharon Beattie, CEO of GenoME
“Currently, a large proportion of ovarian cancer cases are caught at the later stages of the disease, so patients unfortunately have a very poor survival rate. Cancers detected at an earlier stage provide much more opportunity for intervention and improve patient survival.
“Milestones like these will be pivotal in opening conversations with public health bodies and allowing the team to progress our tests further to market. Our ultimate long-term ambition is to eventually enter public screening programmes, however our first market is disease monitoring and diagnosis.”
Chris Mosedale, chief business officer of GenoME Diagnostics, said: “The pipeline we have used to develop our ovarian test can be applied to a wide range of diseases and applications, even beyond cancer.
"There is very strong evidence that our technology could be used to diagnose other cancers and illnesses. This funding round will enable us to research and test this assumption further, improving the chances for more cancer patients.”
GenoME was spun-out of research at Queen's by founders Prof Paul Mullan, Dr James Beirne and Dr Laura Feeney, with Dr Beattie and Mosedale joining in 2019 with the ovarian cancer project during the InnovateUK ICURe programme.
In 2021 GenoME also recruited Dr Mark Street-Docherty as executive chair in the business, and Dr Charlotte McBrien as the first laboratory scientist, now laboratory manager. The company had net assets of £255,000 as of January 2022.
Stuart Gaffikin, investment manager at Clarendon Fund Managers, said: “Co-Fund NI is really pleased to be supporting this investment into GenoME to help its team with the development of a potentially life-changing technology.
"We hope this investment will help the company reach the next phase of development as it seeks to improve the diagnosis process for cancer patients.”
Anne Dornan, enterprise manager at QUBIS, added: “This is an important milestone for GenoME, and QUBIS is excited to be supporting the company through its next stages of development, working alongside our investment partners and building on a great team.”
Photo: (l-r) Prof Paul Mullan, Chris Mosedale, Dr Shannon Beattie; Stuart Gaffikin, Dr Laura Feeney, Dr Mark Street-Docherty, and Anne Dornan.
