Novus Diagnostics Secures €5M
21st November 2022
Irish MedTech firm Novus Diagnostics has secured €5m in new equity financing. This follows €2.4m in funding from the European Innovation Council in 2020, bringing the total funds raised by the company to €7.4m.
The round was led by Grimpeur Holdings with participation from Enterprise Ireland and the European Innovation Council.
The deal comes as SepTec, the company’s revolutionary new testing platform capable of analysing blood samples and delivering a diagnosis of blood stream infection in just 15 minutes, has delivered promising results in pilot-scale clinical studies at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
Co-Founder and COO, Elaine Spain said: “Our mission is to improve patient care worldwide by developing an easy-to-use, revolutionary clinical diagnostic solutions that provide rapid and accurate results, empowering our healthcare providers to effectively treat patients faster than has ever been achieved before.
Our goal is simple and significant: to save lives.
“This investment will enable the team to commercialise the revolutionary device and analyser. Product development will be advanced in preparation for clinical trials and regulatory approval in the United States and Europe. Through continuous stakeholder engagement and clinical validation, the novel disruptive SepTec technology will be advanced and validated as a solution to the global challenge of poor sepsis diagnostics.”
The technology, which is small enough to fit on a bedside table, represents something of a game-changer in the diagnosis of a condition that kills around 11 million people around the world every year. The 15-minute wait time is a fraction of the time taken by current diagnostic testing. In addition to the rapid turnaround time, the test can also classify the type of infection the patient has.
Speeding up this process enables clinicians to immediately target treatment to the pathogen causing the infection. Earlier targeted treatment offers the potential to save lives while reducing healthcare costs, antibiotic usage and the length of hospital stays.
The company currently employs 12 staff at its base in Dublin, and will be actively recruiting for a number of new R&D, engineering, quality and regulatory roles in the coming months.
Sepsis – sometimes referred to as blood poisoning or septicaemia — is the body’s extreme immune response to an infection. Failure to diagnose and treat sepsis early enough can lead to septic shock, organ failure and often death.
Novus Diagnostics is led by lifescience industry veteran, Keith O’Neill, working alongside the co-inventors of the SepTec technology, and co-founders of the company, Elaine Spain (Chief Operating Officer) and Kellie Adamson (Chief Scientific Officer). Trinity Biotech co-founder, Jim Walsh, who also participated in this investment round, serves as the company’s Chairman.
Novus Diagnostics CEO Keith O’Neill says: “This investment is a major boost for the company and will enable us to expand our team and dramatically accelerate our development programme. Having the support of such experienced investors provides a significant endorsement of our mission to transform the diagnosis and management of life-threatening infections. We are building a revolutionary device that can detect and classify pathogens in the blood within 15 minutes. This will enable clinicians to provide targeted treatment hours or days earlier than is currently possible.
Our focus now is on completing development and validation of the platform so the life-saving potential of SepTec can be realised in the clinic.”
Pictured(l-r): Novus Diagnostics Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder Kellie Adamson; CEO Keith O’Neill and Chief Operating Officer and co-founder Elaine Spain.
