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Venture Capital News: Integrated Diagnostics Secures $10M Series A-3

2012-02-22
SEATTLE, WA, Emerging leader in molecular diagnostics, announced that the company has made substantial progress in its diagnostic programs, triggering a $10 million third tranche of its Series A financing.
Integrated Diagnostics (InDi), an emerging leader in molecular diagnostics, today announced that the company has made substantial progress in its diagnostic programs, triggering a $10 million third tranche of its Series A financing. The company will use the funds to complete clinical development of its in vitro proteomic-based diagnostics programs and prepare for them for commercialization.

Funds will also be used to advance the company's novel class of molecules -- protein-catalyzed capture agents (PCCs) -- for use in in vivo molecular imaging and therapeutics. InDi concurrently announced that it has put in place its complete executive team with the appointments of Donald "Guy" Seaton as chief financial officer and James "Jim" Garner as chief business officer.

"As InDi moves swiftly towards commercialization, the third tranche demonstrates the progress we've made in validating our in vitro diagnostic programs as well as our novel class of diagnostic and therapeutic molecules," said Albert "Al" A. Luderer, Ph.D., CEO, Integrated Diagnostics. "In two short years, we have met our two main objectives: define a new in vitro proteomic diagnostic platform capable of answering previously unanswerable diagnostic questions and; demonstrate the feasibility of a new in vivo molecular diagnostic and therapeutic molecular class: PCCs. It's rare that a start-up can hit all of its objectives -- even rarer when the bar has been set so high. Our success speaks to the vision of our founders, the support of our investors, the hard work our employees, and finally, the support of our expanded network of collaborators that continue to assist us in realizing of our vision."

The company is based on Dr. Lee Hood's groundbreaking research in protein blood markers at The Institute for Systems Biology (ISB). In 2009 Integrated Diagnostics became the first commercial enterprise to arise from a partnership that ISB had established with the University of Luxembourg in 2008. Integrated Diagnostics then raised a $30 million Series A round of financing in September 2009. Today's tranche represents the completion of the company's Series A, which was led by InterWest Partners, a diversified venture capital firm, and joined by The Wellcome Trust and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

"With the appointment of our new CFO and CBO, we are also pleased to announce that InDi now has its complete executive team in place," said Dr. Luderer. "Guy is an experienced biotech CFO, familiar with both medical devices and drugs, and has successfully raised money in both good and poor markets. Jim Garner, our new CBO, brings extensive clinical reference laboratory experience and a superb commercial track record of consistently beating sales objectives. Our financial, operational and commercialization efforts could not be placed in more expert hands."

Donald "Guy" Seaton Appointed CFO

As Integrated Diagnostics' CFO, Seaton leads the company's operations, finances and strategic company-building objectives. He brings over 20 years of experience as a biotech executive. Seaton's track record as a biotech CFO spans drug development through commercialization and medical devices. His financial experience includes the full range of capital formation activities for emerging companies ranging from venture-backed financings through IPO.

Seaton was previously the CFO and COO of EndoGastric Solutions. Prior to that he was the CFO of several life sciences companies, including Corus Pharma, Talisma, SonoSite and InControl. He has an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago and an undergraduate degree from Stanford.

James "Jim" Garner Appointed CBO

As InDi's CBO, Garner leads the company's commercialization efforts including global marketing, sales, customer support and commercial partner agreements. He brings 25 years of experience as a sales and marketing executive -- much of it spent selling complex, multi-million dollar data products and technical services to chief executives of life sciences and health insurance companies. His background including building, developing, and leading high performance sales and customer support teams.

Prior to his appointment as CBO, Garner served as a consultant to Integrated Diagnostics for more than a year. Previously he worked at UnitedHealth Group, most recently as senior vice president, global sales, i3 Research. Earlier in his career he was vice president, sales at MDdatacor, a medical informatics company -- and as director of marketing for Elan Diagnostics. He also held sales positions at Dianon Systems, a diagnostic reference laboratory, where he was a colleague of Dr. Luderer's.

Garner served as an aviation officer in the United States Army for five years. He holds a B.S. from Texas A&M University.

About Integrated Diagnostics

Integrated Diagnostics is developing large-scale, blood-based molecular diagnostics that detect important diseases like lung cancer and Alzheimer's at their earliest stages by simultaneously monitoring tens to hundreds of disease markers. The company, founded in October 2009 by systems biology pioneer Dr. Lee Hood, is creating a new generation of personalized medical solutions using sophisticated informatics for biomarker selection and a novel class of synthetically created diagnostic and therapeutic agents with antibody-like properties: protein-catalyzed capture agents (PCCs). Integrated Diagnostics' mission is to build a new generation of low-cost, large-scale diagnostic assays for early detection of serious diseases. The company is conceptually based on a systems view of disease where pathophysiology arises from disease-perturbed networks of proteins, genes, and other molecules. Investors include InterWest Partners, The Wellcome Trust, and BioTechCube Luxembourg. Foundational intellectual property is exclusively licensed from the Institute of Systems Biology and Caltech. Learn more at www.integrated-diagnostics.com
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