Crescendo Bioscience® Secures $28 Million in Series D Financing

Crescendo Bioscience® has announced that it has completed a $28 Million Series D financing. The financing was led by Skyline Ventures and Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. and was joined by existing investors Mohr Davidow Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, aeris CAPITAL AG and others.

Ferghana Partners assisted Crescendo Bioscience in raising the Series D financing and served as its placement agent.

This round of funding will enable Crescendo to accelerate its commercialization efforts for Vectra DA, a novel test which assesses disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis patients.

“2012 was a very productive year in which we made significant investments in both the commercial and medical areas of our business,” said William A. Hagstrom, President and CEO of Crescendo Bioscience.

Hagstrom continued, “Over the last year, we expanded our field sales organization, which allowed us to increase our customer base to nearly 500 rheumatologists and significantly increase test volume to include samples from more than 30,000 patients. To facilitate this growth, we invested in laboratory infrastructure, automation and expanded web portal capabilities to better serve our clients. We also invested in expanding our medical team with rheumatology, immunology and industry expertise to drive additional studies, data generation and peer reviewed publications. With this new Series D financing and the addition of our newest investment partners, Skyline Ventures and Safeguard Scientifics, Inc., we believe that we can build on this progress and generate further momentum in our commercialization and clinical development programs. We look forward to this exciting partnership.”

Crescendo Bioscience is currently working with collaborators from leading medical institutions to improve upon the understanding of the underlying biology of RA.

Vectra DA is a precise, standardized multi-biomarker blood test validated to assess disease activity in RA. Vectra DA measures 12 immune, endothelial, bone, cartilage and metabolic biomarkers reflecting the underlying biology of RA.

Serum concentrations of the biomarkers are integrated into a proprietary algorithm that generates a disease activity score on a scale of 1 to 100.

Crescendo Bioscience is establishing long-term relationships with rheumatologists by providing objective, quantitative and replicable information to help physicians improve patient care and outcomes. All testing is performed at Crescendo Bioscience’s CLIA-certified laboratory.

“We are excited to be working with Crescendo Bioscience to build on its success,” said Leon Chen, Ph.D. at Skyline Ventures and who has joined Crescendo Bioscience’s Board of Directors.

Chen continued, “Crescendo Bioscience and Vectra DA represent not only an innovative technology in a focused market, but also have a strong business model and highly experienced management team-all critical factors in Skyline’s decision-making process to invest. We look forward to lending our expertise to help the company meet and exceed its potential.”

“Vectra DA addresses a large market with significant unmet needs and is already changing the way RA is being managed,” said Gary J. Kurtzman, MD, Managing Director, Life Sciences at Safeguard, who also joined Crescendo Bioscience’s Board of Directors.

Kurtzman continued, “Patients suffering from RA are treated by a concentrated group of only 3,500 rheumatologists who rely on a number of subjective measures to assess disease activity and response to treatment, which may lead to suboptimal outcomes. Vectra DA’s ability to provide an objective assessment addresses this opportunity head on.”