NEW YORK – Neurology diagnostics firm Amprion said Wednesday that it has closed the initial $6 million of a planned $15 million Series B financing round.
The round, which was led by Formation Venture Engineering with participation from Eli Lilly and investors from Amprion's Series A round, will support commercialization of the company's SAAmplify-ɑSYN biomarker test as well as increased R&D.
The SAAmplify-ɑSYN test is an alpha-synuclein seed amplification assay (αSyn-SAA) capable of detecting the misfolded forms of the protein alpha-synuclein linked to Parkinson's and other neurological conditions including Lewy body dementia and multiple system atrophy.
Last month, the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) issued a Letter of Support recommending the use of αSyn-SAAs for research and clinical trials.
Amprion offers the SAAmplify-ɑSYN test as a laboratory-developed test and recently submitted an application for the test to the New York State Department of Health.
"We are proud to support Amprion and its mission to truly revolutionize brain disease diagnosis and accelerate precision medicine for neurodegenerative disorders," FVE Managing Partner Rahul Bhansali said in a statement. "We believe the shift to diagnosis based on biology, rather than symptomology, will be transformative for patients and clinicians."