Oxford Immunotec pulled in a new $28 million round of financing. The U.K. and U.S. medical developer of blood diagnostic tests for tuberculosis gets a round of applause for securing the new cash infusion, which reflects ever-increasing VC interest in diagnostics in general, and steady investor focus on the company in particular. Since its 2002 launch, Oxford Immunotec has raised $110 million overall.
Plans call for using the new funding round to help boost sales and marketing for Oxford Immunotec's lead product: the T-SPOT blood diagnostic test for latent TB infection. Specifically, the money will be used in the U.S. to develop a sales and delivery infrastructure, following construction of a new lab facility in Memphis, GrowthBusiness reports. Executives will also use some of the money to fuel development and commercial launch of other infectious and immunological disease-related diagnostic products.
CEO Peter Wrighton-Smith said in a statement that the new funding round exceeded the company's initial goal, and reflects, in part, the company's early progress in penetrating the U.S. market.
The funding may have exceeded Oxford Immunotec's initial goal, but executives turned to a large number of investors to raise the money. New investors Imperial Innovations and Invesco Perpetual lead the round, which also included existing investors Clarus, New Leaf, DFJ Esprit, Wellington, SPARK Ventures, the Dow Chemical Company, NTEC, Kaiser Permanente Ventures and the University of Oxford, which Oxford Immunotec spun out of.
- read the funding announcement in full
- check out the GrowthBusiness story