By Julia Karow
MLC Dx has raised almost $6 million in private equity that is part of a $9.7 million financing round, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this month.
The San Francisco-based molecular diagnostics startup was founded in 2008, according to the filing, and is led by president and CEO Thomas Willis. Malek Faham is the company’s CSO (see Paired Ends, this issue).
Faham and Willis have a patent pending that describes methods “for using DNA sequencing to identify personalized biomarkers in patients with autoimmune disease and other conditions,” according to the recently published patent application.
In particular, the application covers a method for profiling recombined T-cell and B-cell receptors using sequencing.
MLC Dx is not the only company exploring the use of sequencing to profile the immune repertoire. Earlier this year, for example, Seattle-based Adaptive TCR Technologies, a spin-off from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, started to offer T-cell receptor profiling services (IS 7/20/2010).
In addition, iRepertoire, a recent spin-off from the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology based in Huntsville, Ala, is offering sequencing-based immune repertoire services for B-cells and T-cells.