AAD closes $11M Series B round

Advanced Animal Diagnostics, a developer of technologies for the rapid diagnosis of farm animal diseases, has closed an $11 million Series B round of equity financing. The financing was led by Intersouth Partners and included Novartis Venture Funds, as well as other private investors. The company expects this financing to support hiring for key positions, production and manufacturing, and on-farm economic trials of its first product line. And it is currently seeking cooperators for those on-farm trials, according to an AAD release.

"Novartis Venture Fund is confident that with its new technology, AAD will bring significant benefits to the dairy industry and enhance food production worldwide. The investment meets the aim of our fund to provide innovative patient benefit and supports Novartis's mission to save, prolong and improve animal lives," explains Simon Wheeler, managing director at Novartis Venture Fund, in the release.

This investment in AAD represents the largest single investment in R&D to diagnose mastitis, an infection of the milk-producing gland. Future products will monitor disease states, reproductive, nutritional and overall health status of production animals.

AAD is based on technology originally developed at BD, and CSO Rudy Rodriguez was former VP of R&D for BD's primary care diagnostics division, according to MedCity News. The company was spun out of BD's in-house incubator. While AAD's core technology has applications in human diagnostics, the company has chosen to focus on animal diagnostics, which is an underserved market and offers a quicker path to commercialization.

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