PredictImmune, a fast-growth developer of pioneering prognostic tools for immune-mediated diseases, has secured a £10m funding package to accelerate global commercial expansion and support its expanding product pipeline. BGF, the UK and Ireland’s most active investor in growing businesses, will provide £4m of growth capital alongside Cambridge Innovation Capital (CIC) and existing investors.
Founded in May 2017 and based at the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge, PredictImmune develops pioneering tools for guiding treatment options in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases like Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis (IBD). Based on ten years of research at Cambridge University, PredictImmune’s test kits help both clinicians and patients to understand, at the point of diagnosis, the likely course of disease and opens the possibility of better treatment choices from the outset.
This latest funding round will be used to support international commercialisation of its products and continue to build a portfolio of new tools to complement and enrich its prognostic test pipeline in the coming years. It follows a £4.7m Series A fundraise in 2017 and an additional £4.3m investment from the Wellcome Trust in January 2018 to support a clinical trial of its test for treatment guidance in Crohn’s disease.
Paul Kinnon, CEO of PredictImmune said, “I am delighted with the level of investment secured in this latest round. It’s particularly gratifying to see our existing investors’ confidence in PredictImmune as they follow their initial investments and equally exciting to welcome new investors including BGF and CIC too. This investment will enable us to keep up the momentum, pushing on with our commercial expansion across the UK, Europe, the USA and rest of the world, whilst also allowing for the expansion and development of our product pipeline.
“It’s an exciting time to be part of PredictImmune, and as a team we are extremely motivated by both progress to date and our future objectives especially around enabling improved treatment choice in patients being diagnosed with IBD.”
Tim Rea, an investor at BGF who will join the board of PredictImmune said, “As an active investor in diagnostics, we are excited to support PredictImmune’s innovative approach to forecasting the progression of disease. The business has grown quickly to take advantage of demand from a thriving market, and a decade of research from highly-dedicated academic and management teams has been effectively translated into a tool that will materially impact the lives of those afflicted with IBD.”
This is BGF’s fifth investment in the medical diagnostics sector in the last year.
Rea added, “Our focus on diagnostics businesses over the past year has been driven by our belief that many of the exciting developments in life sciences more broadly will be enabled by key diagnostic breakthroughs. These advances allow for earlier detection of conditions, support ongoing monitoring and facilitate more personalised treatment, and will therefore have a fundamental impact on the lives of patients around the world.”
The investment was led for BGF by Tim Rea and Nathan Heath.