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In Brief This Week: Noscendo, Inex Innovate, Bionano Genomics, and More

NEW YORK – German infectious disease diagnostics startup Noscendo said on Thursday that it has raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Series A financing round.

Participants in the round included existing investors Wieland Capital and High-Tech Gründerfonds and new investors Earlybird, Paua Ventures, and JIH Family Office.

Noscendo plans to use the funding to expand its business, hiring a CSO and a chief operating officer and launching its Disqver bioinformatics platform for the detection of cell-free pathogen DNA in blood in Europe.

The company also said that its development and application laboratory has started operations and that it plans to establish a strategic and scientific advisory board.


Inex Innovate said this week it has entered into an agreement with the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) to provide test kits for the diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

As of April 21, Inex had supplied more than 20,000 tests to Malaysia-based UMMC. Malaysia has ramped up testing capacity to 11,050 tests per day compared to 3,000 per day at the end of March, the firm said. 


Bionano Genomics last week obtained a two-year, $1.8 million loan under the paycheck protection program of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The loan has an annual interest rate of 1 percent.

According to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the US Small Business Association administered the loan and the promissory note was issued by East West Bank. Bionano's filing also disclosed that on April 15, the firm's board reduced the salary of certain executives and other employees. Bionano CEO Erik Holmlin, chief operating officer Mark Oldakowsi, and chief commercial officer Warren Robinson will have their gross monthly salaries reduced by 50 percent for at least two months. 


Genetic Technologies said this week that it has closed a previously announced offering of 722,502 of its American Depositary Shares (ADSs) at A$2.00 ($1.28) each for gross proceeds of about A$1.44 million. Each ADS represents 600 of the Australian molecular diagnostic firm's ordinary shares.

The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for a number of business activities, including the introduction and distribution of its new products in the US. 


In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb.

The Scan

Genetic Ancestry of South America's Indigenous Mapuche Traced

Researchers in Current Biology analyzed genome-wide data from more than five dozen Mapuche individuals to better understand their genetic history.

Study Finds Variants Linked to Diverticular Disease, Presents Polygenic Score

A new study in Cell Genomics reports on more than 150 genetic variants associated with risk of diverticular disease.

Mild, Severe Psoriasis Marked by Different Molecular Features, Spatial Transcriptomic Analysis Finds

A spatial transcriptomics paper in Science Immunology finds differences in cell and signaling pathway activity between mild and severe psoriasis.

ChatGPT Does As Well As Humans Answering Genetics Questions, Study Finds

Researchers in the European Journal of Human Genetics had ChatGPT answer genetics-related questions, finding it was about 68 percent accurate, but sometimes gave different answers to the same question.