Inflammatix, maker of an immune system-focused molecular diagnostic test, has secured $32 million in funding to power its commercial launches in Europe and regulatory submissions for the FDA.
The company’s series C round included previous backers Khosla Ventures, Northpond Ventures and Think.Health Ventures as well as new investor Grey Sky Venture Partners.
The new financing follows a November 2019 contract with the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to develop its tests for acute infections and sepsis. The BARDA cost-sharing contract includes up to $72 million based on certain milestones.
"We are pleased to have the support of this strong group of healthcare investors who share our excitement about leveraging the immune response to build novel precision diagnostics for infectious and inflammatory disease,” Inflammatix co-founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said in a statement.
“In particular, our first tests will help tackle antibiotic resistance and sepsis, two critical public health challenges, by reading the patient's host-immune response to infection," Sweeney added. "With this financing in hand, we look forward to bringing our rapid HostDx tests into hospitals and clinics so that physicians can quickly get the right treatments to the right patients."
Inflammatix's tests use machine learning algorithms to parse the expression of multiple immune system genes that make up the host response, in order to identify the presence of a bacterial or viral infection and determine if a patient is likely to develop sepsis.
It is designed to produce point-of-care results in 30 minutes or less. The company said it plans to submit its tests for FDA review in 2021.