Precision Therapeutics gets $33M to support ChemoFx

Pittsburgh-based Precision Therapeutics has landed a $33 million venture capital round, with Bain Capital leading the Series D funding round. "That's twice what we shot for," said CEO Sean McDonald, who, according to the Pittsburgh Business Times, originally hoped to raise $15 million. "We grew quite a bit last year, and, consequently, we had a lot of interest from large VC firms." Additional investors included Adams Capital Management, Quaker BioVentures, and Birchmere Ventures.

Precision already has a diagnostic product on the market. ChemoFx is lab test that predicts how patients' cancer cells will respond to different chemotherapy agents prior to initiating the treatment. Sales of the test reached $23 million in 2009, and Precision hopes that with this additional financing it can push sales even higher. Funding will also support development of a genomics-based product which  the company hopes to market in 2011.

Precision had plans to go public in 2007 until the financial crisis hit, reports the Times. In 2008 the company landed on FierceBiotech's annual Top VC Deals list after it raised a $43 million dollar round to support work on ChemoFx. The 250-person company will hire additional workers and plans to open new lab space in July.

- read the Pittsburgh Business Times report