NEW YORK — Phenomix Sciences said Thursday that it has closed a $5.5 million Series A financing round and has received a $2.3 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue work on a recently launched blood test for predicting obesity phenotypes.
Phenomix was spun out of the Mayo Clinic in late 2018 to develop a multiomics test that analyzes DNA, protein, and metabolic biomarkers in blood samples to identify biomarkers that can characterize obesity and guide weight loss treatments. The technology underlying the test was exclusively licensed by the Menlo Park, California-based company in 2021.
Last month, Phenomix launched a test, called MyPhenome, designed to identify three obesity phenotypes: Hungry Brain, a defect of satiation; Hungry Gut, a defect of satiety; and Emotional Hunger, emotional reward from eating.
With the Series A funding — which was provided by new investors DexCom and LabCorp, as well as existing investor Health2047 — Phenomix aims to accelerate the commercialization and adoption of MyPhenome, as well as to develop other phenotyping tests, run clinical studies, and partner with pharmaceutical and healthcare companies.
The NIH funding, Phenomix added, will be used to run a prospective clinical trial of MyPhenome to demonstrate its accuracy in predicting obesity treatment response.