NEW YORK – Belgian diagnostics firm miDiagnostics announced on Thursday the completion of a €14 million ($15.3 million) financing round to accelerate the development of its technology.
Investors in the round include existing shareholders as well as individual investors Rudi Pauwels, founder and former CEO of Biocartis, and Urbain Vandeurzen, founder and chairman of Smile Invest and former co-founder, chairman and CEO of LMS International.
The financing will go toward development of miDiagnostics' nanofluidic process on a chip, it said, as it prepares it for industrial-scale manufacturing. The technology, which was developed by Imec and Johns Hopkins University, combines a nanofluidic processor on a chip and a compact reader, allowing users to measure biomarkers in "an easily accessed sample such as drops of fingerprick blood."
It added it is developing tests for screening, diagnosing, and monitoring a wide group of health conditions, including infectious diseases. Applications for its technology potentially include the monitoring of chronic patients at home, screening patients in remote settings, and monitoring populations during pandemics.
miDiagnostics said it also is working with NASA to evaluate the technology under simulated zero gravity conditions.
The company previously nabbed €1.7 million from VLAIO, the Flemish agency for innovation and entrepreneurship in 2018.