A Scottish company developing rapid cell analysis for the biopharmaceutical industry has raised £4 million to scale up testing of its technology platform.
Founded by University of Edinburgh graduate Dr Keith Muir, Cytomos has secured the funding from existing investors Archangels, Old College Capital and Scottish Enterprise. The British Business Bank also joined as a new investor.
The company is developing its Cytomos Dielectric Spectroscopy (CDS) platform to help scientists evaluate the effectiveness of new medical therapies more quickly. This is expected to speed the development of new treatments while also reducing costs.
Cytomos is aiming to bring its platforms to the commercial market next year, having expanded its operational and strategic management team during the past 12 months with the appointments of David Rigterink as chief executive and Lindsay Fraser as chief scientific officer. The fresh capital injection is set to double the current team of 12 employees.
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“We are uniquely positioned in harnessing the power of consumer electronics technology to meet the emerging, complex needs of the bioprocess industry," Mr Rigterink said.
"On the back of a very successful year for Cytomos, this new funding will now allow us to scale up our engagement with industry partners. We truly believe that, through our CDS technology, we offer a powerful platform which will help the scientific community bring novel therapies to market faster and radically reduce costs by making better informed, game-changing decisions a lot earlier.”
The company has been supported by Archangels since its inception with the first significant seed funding round in 2018. Archangels director Sarah Hardy said the investment group is looking forward to working with Cytomos to further drive the business forward.
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“As a highly innovative, Scottish early-stage life science company with global horizons, Cytomos is an excellent fit for our investment portfolio," she said.
"Its ambitious vision to improve real-time cell analysis in formats to better suit the end users will revolutionise the development and commercialisation of products in the bioprocessing and cell and gene therapies spaces."
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