This story originally ran on Feb. 2.
Protein biomarker firm NextGen Group said this week that it has entered a convertible loan agreement with Alpha 4 Concepts for the provision of additional funding of €800,000 ($1.05 million).
The funding follows a previous €800,000 loan made to the company by Alpha 4 in November, which NextGen noted at the time was required "in order to continue to fund the working capital requirements of the [firm] and the investments in the diagnostic business" (PM 11/4/2011). The company also noted in November that a second loan would likely be necessary.
The new loan was made at 12 percent interest for a period ending Nov. 31, 2012, and is convertible at the lender's option into ordinary shares in NextGen at a price of 0.1p per share plus one warrant for every share issued.
During the first half of 2011, NextGen embarked upon a reorganization of its business, moving into the plasma biomarker discovery space by launching a series of protein biomarker panels aimed at various therapeutic areas (PM 3/18/2011).
Previously the company had focused on providing custom biomarker services for pharma and biotech firms. Barry McAleer, CEO of NextGen Sciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of NextGen Group, told ProteoMonitor upon the launch of the panels that moving into the discovery panel space was an immediate tactical approach to generating cash, as well as "a way of finding more lucrative projects" in the diagnostics and personalized medicine space.
Earlier this month the company launched its latest discovery panel product, its csfdiscovery 82 multiplex protein assay for the discovery and quantification of protein biomarkers linked to central nervous system diseases including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and multiple sclerosis.
The assay uses multiple-reaction monitoring mass spectrometry to simultaneously measure 82 proteins in cerebrospinal fluid samples.