DNAe Secures £25M

DNAe, the inventors of semiconductor DNA sequencing technology, have secured a bank facility of £25 million ($38 million) to fund the final development stages of DNAe Diagnostics’ revolutionary point-of-need test for serious blood infections. This will include clinical trials targeted for 2016 and product launch in 2017.

The facility, with Citibank, follows an internal fundraising exercise that raised $24 million in January 2015 to fund DNAe’s acquisition of Albuquerque, USA-based nanoMR, Inc. (now DNA Electronics, Inc.).

DNAe is applying its Genalysis® semiconductor DNA sequencing technology to develop a rapid in vitro diagnostic for serious blood infections that lead to sepsis. The test integrates DNA Electronics Inc.’s novel Pathogen Capture System technology with DNAe’s Genalysis® platform, to provide a complete blood-to-result diagnostic solution with actionable results in 2-3 hours. This is a major step forward from current approaches, which can take days, in an area where time-to-result is a critical factor.

Prof. Chris Toumazou, Executive Chairman, DNAe said: “The development of our serious bloodstream infections test is progressing well. Following the acquisition and integration of nanoMR, Inc. earlier this year, we are in a great position to achieve our objective to launch our in vitro diagnostic system in 2017. Our semiconductor DNA semiconductor technology has the potential to revolutionize how patients with these life-threatening infections are treated and the bank facility demonstrates the confidence of the bank and of our shareholders in DNAe’s technology, team and strategy to achieve this.”