Finnish molecular diagnostics maker gets €15M for infectious disease test development

Finnish molecular diagnostic company Mobidiag Oy got a €15 million loan ($16.5 million) to expand production and marketing over the next three years. The loan is fuel for the company’s tank as it revs up manufacturing and competes in a crowded infectious disease diagnostic market.

The loan, which is from the European Investment Bank (EIB), will help Mobidiag finalize and scale up manufacturing, validate tests and commercialize its Novodiag platform. The Pori, Finland-based company’s system can produce results in an hour with minimal hands-on time, Mobidiag said on its website, a boon for small or decentralized labs that are looking for quick data.

The company also is working on building out its Amplidiag system, which includes multiplex tests for gastrointestinal infections. The tests use real-time PCR to generate results and are geared toward high-volume screening in mid-size to large labs.

“Since our Finnish and French teams joined forces in 2013, we have thrived to become a key player in the field of IVD for infectious diseases. Thanks to the EIB, we have now the resources to reach our goals and build significant value over the next years based on our state-of-the-art assays and platforms”, Mobidiag CEO Tuomas Tenkanen said in a statement.

The funding is also part of the “InnovFin - EU Finance for Innovators” program. InnovFin grants loans to companies working on products for infectious diseases, and Mobidiag is its third loan recipient, the company said.

Mobidiag is trying to break into a competitive space. The market for point-of-care diagnostics for infectious disease rings in at $533 million and is growing at 7% a year, Frost & Sullivan analyst Divyaa Ravishankar told The Wall Street Journal last year. Bigger companies such as Roche ($RHHBY) and smaller diagnostic makers are already cashing in with new tests that can pinpoint infections early-on to potentially cut down on costs.

- read the statement

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