New funding for Vivacta’s point of care diagnostics

Diagnostics company Vivacta Ltd raised $12 million in a second private funding round from new and existing investors including Spark Ventures (formerly Quester), AGF Private Equity, HBM BioVentures and Viking.   

The money will drive forward the commercialisation and launch of the company’s first Point of Care (PoC) immunoassay system, based on its patented piezofilm sensor technology.

Neil Butler, CEO, said, “We are particularly pleased to have the support of two leading European venture capital firms, AGF Private Equity and HBM BioVentures.  In addition, the continued backing from our existing investors, Spark Ventures and Viking, is a further strong endorsement of Vivacta’s technology platform and of our approach to commercialising that technology.”

AGF Private Equity and HBM will appoint Gerry Moeller and Gerard Vaillant respectively to the board of Vivacta. Both have experience in diagnostics, with Moeller a former Chief Executive of the Boehringer Mannheim group and member of the management board of Roche, while Vaillant chaired the diagnostics division of Johnson & Johnson and was CEO and President of Ortho Clinical.

“With our existing chairman, Rolf Classon, and director, Werner Schaefer, these new appointments give us a board with more combined industry know-how than probably any other privately held diagnostics company,” said Butler.

Vivacta is currently completing development of the reader and cartridge for its rapid, highly sensitive, piezo film-based immunoassay system and intends to begin clinical evaluation of its first PoC application, in 2008. The company is in the process of doubling the size of its facility in the Kent Science Park in the UK, to add a pilot manufacturing line for its disposable cartridge.

Discussions are taking place with potential licensees for the piezofilm technology, which can quickly deliver a laboratory quality analysis of whole blood samples, without the need for cell separation.