NEW YORK ─ Epigenetic diagnostics firm VolitionRx on Wednesday announced it has been awarded additional non-dilutive funding totaling approximately $4 million from the government of the Walloon Region and venture capital investor Namur Invest, both in Belgium, consisting of a cash grant of $1.3 million and $2.7 million in loans.
Volition obtained the cash grant from the Walloon Region to support a project titled Epigenetic Modifications of Nucleosomes Associated With Cancer.
The diagnostics firm obtained an unsecured loan of approximately $1.1 million from the region to support research and technology transfer for the production of recombinant nucleosomes. The repayment terms are split into two parts ─ repayment independent of revenues, and repayment dependent on revenues at 4.34 percent of the revenue generated on a Volition product from launch up to 2036.
The company was also awarded an unsecured loan of approximately $600,000 from the Walloon Region to support the analysis of tumor DNA using a nucleosome immunoprecipitation method. The repayment terms for the unsecured loan are also split into two parts ─ repayment independent of revenues, and repayment dependent on revenues at 2.89 percent of revenue generated on a Volition product from launch up to 2032.
Namur Invest provided a loan of approximately $1 million to support the purchase and fit-out of Volition's Silver One production facility. The loan bears an interest rate of 4 percent and is repayable over 10 years ending March 2031.
To date, agencies from the Walloon Region have awarded Volition an aggregate of approximately $13 million in non-dilutive funding, including this most recent award. This latest funding takes the total non-dilutive funding to-date from all sources to over $15 million, Cameron Reynolds, president and CEO of Volition, said in a statement.
Austin, Texas-based Volition's research and development activities are centered in Belgium.
In 2018, Volition announced that it had received $700,000 in non-dilutive funding from the government of the Walloon region.
On Tuesday, Swiss startup 4D Lifetech and Volition said that they have partnered to evaluate whether combining their respective assay technologies can better identify individuals with early-stage cancer.