NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – MIODx has closed a $1.5 million seed round, the company announced today. The funding will be used to complete a clinical utility study for the firm's VerifyDx Prostate Cancer test and to begin commercialization.
The startup also announced that it has entered into a lease for 3,000 square feet of space at the San Jose BioCube, also home to Ariosa Diagnostics, Geneweave, and Genia.
The VerifyDx system is a multiplexed PCR-based oncology testing platform that examines DNA and RNA pathways implicated in metastatic cancers.
While many oncology assays interrogate biomarkers in a single genomic pathway, such as oncogenes or methylation, "the VerifyDx test looks at biomarkers across four different genomic pathways and then applies a proprietary algorithm that provides better insight into the aggressiveness of a patient's tumor," Allen Northrup, MIODx's CEO and former co-founder of Cepheid, said in a statement.
Following commercialization of the prostate cancer test, MIODx plans to launch tests for colon, lung, and kidney cancers.
The firm also has IP around an immunosequencing platform to profile T-cell and B-cell diversity that can be applied to imunotherapy response monitoring, drug target discovery, and adaptive immune system profiling. It said that it is in early discussions about using the test as a companion diagnostic for immune-oncology therapies.