Startup Prominex Raises $4M in Series A1

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Startup molecular diagnostic firm Prominex announced today it has raised $4 million in Series A1 financing. 

The funding comes from Casdin Capital and Paul Thomas, a cofounder and CEO of Prominex and former CEO of Roka Bioscience. 

Prominex will use the funding to further develop its technology — including a coupled hairpin amplification system, or CHASE, and waveguide detection — for highly multiplexed infectious disease assays, in partnership with point-of-care instrument developer Invetech.

The firm claims its system, called Validex, can deliver five-minute sample-to-answer molecular diagnostics test results.  

"We believe our Validex system holds significant promise to improve patient care and outcomes in time-critical clinical situations and to realize significant cost savings by optimized patient management and triage of patients to the most appropriate care setting," Thomas said in a statement. The firm's website notes that it will focus initial applications on sexually transmitted diseases and respiratory infections.

In addition to Thomas, other cofounders and executives at Prominex also share pedigrees from Roka Bioscience as well as from Gen-Probe, a firm acquired by Hologic in 2012. Roka sold its assets for $17.5 million in cash last year to Rokabio, a newly formed subsidiary of the Institute for Environmental Health, and subsequently voluntarily delisted its common stock from the NASDAQ. The company was called Sorrento Tech when it delisted.