NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Start-up CellPly has attracted €2 million ($2.8 million) in seed capital investment to support development of its technology for determining patient response to oncology therapeutics.
Italian Angels for Growth, Zernike Meta Ventures, and Atlas Seed made the investment into Bologna, Italy-based CellPly in order to support the firm's completion of its diagnostics platform, which is being developed to allow clinicians to assess in vitro a patient's cellular response to cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and monoclonal antibodies.
CellPly's technology is based on microdevices and software for data generation. The company said on its website that the platform uses open microwell technology that evaluates the functional response of cells. The platform analyzes small ex vivo samples and rare cells while preserving microenvironment conditions to "provide information about tumor cell sensitivity to drugs and in vivo status of single immune cells located close to tumor cells."
CellPly stems from co-founder Roberto Guerrieri's research group at the University of Bologna, Italian Angels for Growth said in a statement.