NEW YORK ─ Oslo, Norway-based CardiNor on Tuesday announced that it has closed on a funding round that raised NOK 12 million ($1.4 million) to develop an ELISA test that uses secretoneurin as a blood-based biomarker for cardiovascular disease.
The company said it will use the funding to obtain CE marking, initiate US regulatory activities, and expand the range of indications for secretoneurin.
London-based Intuitive Investments participated in the financing along with current investors.
"Our aim is to develop a routine test for this important marker which we believe will provide clinicians with a key tool for both more accurate risk prediction and patient management," CardiNor CEO Dag Christiansen said in a statement.
The company said that secretoneurin is associated with biological processes linked to cardiomyocyte Ca2+ handling and is a strong predictor of mortality in some patient cohorts, including patients with ventricular arrhythmia, acute heart failure, and acute respiratory failure associated with cardiovascular disease and severe sepsis.
CardiNor said it has demonstrated the potential of secretoneurin to support patient selection for implantable cardioverter defibrillators and to detect the eligibility of heart failure patients to be discharged from care.
The company currently markets secretoneurin as part of a research-use-only assay.