Next Gen Multiplexing Firm Genalyte Raises $12M Series B Financing

Genalyte, Inc. has announced completion of an $11.8 million Series B financing.

New investors Redmile Group and Claremont Creek Ventures and private investors from Genalyte’s Series A round participated in the Series B financing.

Genalyte intends to use the new funds primarily for commercialization of its Maverick™ platform and its highly multiplexed panels for autoimmune and immunoassay applications.

Genalyte has pioneered an entirely new approach to immunodetection using silicon chip manufacturing methods.

The Maverick platform uses a technology called silicon photonics to directly measure protein binding between antibodies and antigens or hybridization of nucleic acids.

This technology eliminates the need for complex processing associated with current multiplexed testing, while leveraging the manufacturing advantages of silicon chips.

Genalyte is preparing to launch the Maverick platform this summer, initially addressing the autoimmunity research and testing markets.

“By applying advances in silicon photonics to the life sciences, we have been able to develop a completely new approach to biological detection that provides major advantages to researchers and, eventually, to clinicians,” commented Genalyte CEO and founder Cary Gunn.

Gunn continued, “Our initial funding enabled us to fully develop and refine the silicon photonics biosensor consumables that are the heart of the Maverick system, along with the instrument itself and our initial multiplexed immunology panels. This new financing provides us with the resources to launch the platform in the coming months and to begin to populate it with a wide variety of proprietary assays for multiple applications.”

The Maverick platform runs scalable multiplexed assays using a silicon chip that contains arrays of photonic microring sensors that can simultaneously analyze multiple proteins from a single small sample.

Assays do not require the washes, incubations, reagents or other processing steps typically associated with sample preparation.

The assays are therefore simple to use and rapid-results are available in only 15 minutes, including just two minutes of hands-on time. The Maverick platform has a large dynamic range and excellent sensitivity, with good reproducibility and no cross talk.

Dr. Gunn continued, “By using silicon-based technologies, we can provide customers with unprecedented system performance while leveraging the highly efficient production characteristic of traditional silicon chip manufacturing. During our four years of development, we and our academic collaborators generated a large number of peer-reviewed studies that provide important validation for the superiority of our detection data and the breadth of applications that are possible. We look forward to unveiling the Maverick platform at upcoming scientific meetings and to making this exciting new technology available to researchers worldwide.”