Belfast-based health tech company GenoME has closed a £1.4m funding round in support of its diagnostics platform for the early detection of ovarian cancer.
The investment follows a £300,000 pre-seed round in 2021, which allowed the company to achieve regulatory milestones in the UK. GenoME will use its new finances to complete the testing of its tech as it seeks regulatory approval in the EU.
The company plans to extend its tech to screen for other types of cancer and potentially expand into other disease areas.
“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,” said Dr Shannon Beattie, CEO of GenoME Diagnostics.
“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.”
The funding came from QUBIS, the commercial investment arm of Queen’s University Co-Fund NI, which is responsible for many of the funding rounds in Northern Ireland.
“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,” said Stuart Gaffikin, investment manager at Clarendon Fund Managers.
“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.”
The round also included a £500,000 InnovateUK Biomedical Catalyst grant.
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