Single-cell functional proteomics platform developer IsoPlexis announced this week it has raised an additional $20 million in a Series C round, capital that will enable the company to continue the global expansion of its flagship IsoLight single-cell proteomic analysis platform.
The financing round comes as IsoPlexis pushes to expand its operational, manufacturing, and commercial team globally. Currently, the company has operations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, with more than 130 employees.
According to the company, its technology has been used in a number of different settings including precision drug discovery and biomarker discovery in oncology, to identify proteomic differences that are often undetectable via other methods.
“From confirming gene edits to pinpointing the biological drivers of response, leading researchers from both academic and biopharma are utilizing the IsoLight to solve challenges in cancer immunology, inflammatory diseases, and engineered cell therapy discovery and development,” Sean Mackay, CEO and co-founder of IsoPlexis told Clinical OMICs. “Using our high-dimensional data from each cell, researchers are improving their processes as they’re advancing development of their therapies towards achieving the most potent functional responses for improved outcomes in patients.”
In 2020, Mackay said the company will continue to expand its applications and release innovative products addressing high need research areas for its existing and future customer base. This includes bolstering its technology to the ability to better understand the functional states of innate cell types such as NK cells and monocytes, and the roles these play in the immune system.
“Additionally, we’ll be introducing products to assess functional interactions within the phosphoproteomic and metabolomic landscapes,” Mackay added. “It is critical to have single-cell proteomic tools to understand these functional interactions to better tune cells and understand how gene edits functionally affect downstream signaling cascades to continue to make improvements within a variety of indications.”
The recent financing was led by Northpond Ventures, along with participation from existing investors and brings to $45 million the total raised to date by IsoPlexis.
“We are excited to continue our partnership with our investor base and to broaden our commercial impact globally with our single-cell proteomic systems. Our leadership in providing meaningful cellular insights to the world of cancer immunology, has rapidly translated to broad uptake for our solutions,” Mackay noted in a press release.
“IsoPlexis is providing much needed solutions to significant challenges in cancer, immunology, and engineered cellular therapy discovery and development,” said Sharon Kedar, co-founder and partner of Northpond Ventures, in a statement. “We are excited to continue partnering with IsoPlexis on these efforts to transform personalized medicine.”
