13 December 2017: Abingdon Health Ltd announces the completion of a £1.1m funding round, raised from current shareholders.
The funding will be applied to working capital and will be used for the continued extension of the company’s lateral flow device product set and associated reader systems.
Abingdon’s lateral flow device products include Seralite®, a rapid test for the diagnosis and management of patients with multiple myeloma.
Based on technology originally developed at the University of Birmingham, Seralite®– FLC (free light chain) launched two years ago as the world’s first rapid diagnostic device in multiple myeloma. The test provides results within 10 minutes rather than days or weeks and enables clinicians to monitor patients in real time, supporting faster decision making.
In quarter three 2017, three separate studies were published validating the benefits of Seralight® in a total sample size of more than 5,700 patients1,2,3.
Abingdon has also recently entered into a co-marketing agreement with Innova Biosciences Ltd, a SYGNIS company, making the company Innova’s preferred supplier for lateral flow contract manufacturing. A separate agreement with Skannex results in Abingdon being Skannex’s preferred partner for lateral flow development and manufacturing.
Abingdon CEO, Chris Yates, commented “We are delighted to secure this funding and we thank our shareholders for their continued support. At Abingdon, we have created a growing immunodiagnostics-based rapid-test company and this additional investment will allow us to continue to develop and sell our portfolio of products and services”.
University of Birmingham Enterprise CEO, Dr James Wilkie, commented: “Abingdon Health has grown rapidly. Since the launch of Seralite®, which is now available in 70 countries, the company has passed several significant milestones and is now poised for further expansion in 2018.”
ENDS
For further information:
For further media information contact Ruth Ashton, [email protected], or call 0121 414 9090 (out of hours number 07989 558041).
About University of Birmingham Enterprise
University of Birmingham Enterprise supports academics who want to innovate, take their ideas to market, work with businesses and social enterprises, or enrich their professional lives by doing academic consultancy projects. We do this by providing enterprise training, funding, office and laboratory space, and a full technology transfer service. You can follow us @UoBAccelerate.
About the University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham is ranked amongst the world’s top 100 institutions. Its work brings people from across the world to Birmingham, including researchers, teachers and more than 5,000 international students from over 150 countries.
About Abingdon Health
Abingdon develop and manufacture lateral flow assays and readers under the Abingdon brand specialising in the area of multiple myeloma. Abingdon also offers development and manufacturing services for customers looking to develop new assays or looking to transfer existing laboratory-based assays to a lateral flow format. Abingdon take projects from initial concept through to routine and large-scale manufacturing. Abingdon’s patented lateral flow reader, the ADxLR5®, is CE marked and FDA registered and can be fully customised to meet the needs of clients looking for a quantitative solution for a lateral flow assay.
About Myeloma
• Myeloma is a blood cancer related to lymphoma and leukaemia.
• There is no cure although there are treatments that can slow down the course of the disease
• A third (33%) of people diagnosed with myeloma in England and Wales survive their disease for ten years or more (2010-11)4
• Myeloma survival is improving and has quadrupled in the last 40 years in the UK4
References:
1. Campbell, J. P. et al (2016). Development of a rapid and quantitative lateral flow assay for the simultaneous measurement of serum κ and λ immunoglobulin free light chains (FLC): inception of a new near-patient FLC screening tool. Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (CCLM). https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cclm.ahead-of-print/cclm-2016-0194/cclm-2016-0194.xml
2. Heaney, J. L. J. et al (2017). Diagnosis and monitoring for light chain only and oligosecretory myeloma using serum free light chain tests. British Journal of Haematology. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjh.14753/full
3. Heaney, J. L. J. et al (2017). Multiple myeloma can be accurately diagnosed in acute kidney injury patients using a rapid serum free light chain test. BMC Nephrology. https://bmcnephrol.biomedcentral.com/track/pdf/10.1186/s12882-017-0661-z
4. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/statistics-by-cancer-type/myeloma