Protagen Raises €1 Million to Expand its Protein Biochips Business Unit

Protagen AG has announces the closing of an interim financing round. The €1 million raised will be used to expand the company’s protein biochips business unit.

The capital raised in this round has come from the existing institutional investors, MIG AG and Co KG Beteiligungsfonds 3, Munich, and S-Venture Capital Dortmund GmbH, as well as from a new investor, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW). This latest funding brings the total amount of venture capital financing raised by Protagen since 2004 to €5.3 million.

The UNIchip® protein biochip range was launched onto the market in September 2005, and has experienced increasing demand from biotech and pharmaceutical companies, particularly in the USA and Europe where Protagen is based.

Using this new capital Protagen aims to leverage its position in protein biochips to create new products and services in the area of biomarkers, both independently and in conjunction with pharmaceutical partners.

The Company has already created a protein biochip technology package, UNIarray®, for the discovery and validation of new biomarkers.

Following the systematic identification of autoantibodies in patient sera, Protagen is able to create a protein biochip prototype for its partners that can be used as a diagnostic tool, either as part of clinical study or for the identification of patient cohorts.

Protagen is also working on its own programmes for the development of prototype diagnostics for multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease. The programme for multiple sclerosis is the most advanced, with a prototype diagnostic for the disease already being tested in large numbers of patients.