Cytox Closes £1.5M Second Round of Funding

By News

New Funding Will Accelerate Access to Clinical Value, Says CEO

Cytox Ltd, a leading developer of assays for risk assessment and prediction of dementia, has announced the successful completion of a second round of funding, closing at £1.5M.

New shareholders include Seneca Partners Ltd. and the round was led by existing shareholder, SPARK, Northwest Fund for Biomedical with strong support from other existing shareholders including Wren Capital and The Rainbow Seed Fund (Midven), as well as private investors.

This round brings the total raised by Cytox in the last 15 months in excess of £5M, following the close of the previous round of £3.5 in May 2013.

“We started an extensive evaluation programme for our mTOR pathway biomarker technology last month,” commented Dr. Richard Pither, CEO of Cytox, “This new money will allow us to extend the clinical research programme and more rapidly access potentially valuable utility claims.” Dr. Pither explained further that, “With two clinical programmes in both the European Union and North America, state of the art laboratory capabilities in Manchester UK and a partnership with a US-based laboratory, Selah Genomics, Cytox has progressed its plans rapidly in 2014.”

Dr. Pither also commented that the laboratory facilities and partnership would allow the company to partner with academia and industry in Europe and North America in the development of new Alzheimer’s disease therapies and biomarkers.

Richard Manley for Seneca commented: “We like the technology and the Cytox team and believe they have the ability to deliver significant value in a field with substantial unmet need. A simple blood-based biomarker of risk for Alzheimer’s would be a perfect complement to existing technology and could provide unique insight in very early disease where there are few symptoms or disease pathology to guide treatment.”

“We were pleased to be able to lead this new round and be joined by so many existing shareholders” said Dr. Penny Attridge of SPARK Impact. “The Cytox management have executed well against plan and continue to identify new opportunities for value with this exciting new technology.”