Xagenic, a startup focused on developing a quick, automated, lab-free molecular diagnostic system, has dipped into the life sciences entrepreneurial world to hire its president and CEO.
The Toronto company said Timothy Still will fill both slots, and also serve on the company's board of directors. His mission will be to help the company maintain its early momentum and back up the initial hype.
Before Xagenic, Still was president and CEO of Accumetrics, a startup that became a commercial point-of-care test manufacturer and, since 2013, has been owned by ITC. He was also an executive at Hemosense, a point-of-care company that developed a handheld diagnostic device; Inverness Medical--now Alere ($ALR)--snatched up the company in 2007, Xagenic said. He's also a veteran of related companies including Boehringer Mannheim and Bio-Rad Laboratories.
Xagenic launched in 2010, spun out of the University of Toronto, and it has advanced aggressively since then. In an era in which diagnostics startups have struggled to obtain significant early-stage venture financing, Xagenic raised a $10 million Series A round in January 2012. Last December, the company pulled in an even more impressive $18.8 million Series B financing. Add-on investments quickly led to a second closing and a beefed-up Series B round announced in July that hit $25.5 million.
Xagenic's advance continued just this month, when it secured a $6 million grant from Genome Canada to further its work. The Ontario Ministry of Research is supporting the project with a grant matching the Genome Canada contribution, the company said.
Xagenic founder and CTO Shana Kelley told FierceDiagnostics in December that the company bucked dismal fundraising trends by working hard to provide investors what they need to assure them that their concept works and performs as designed. Ever since it launched in 2010, Kelley said in December, Xagenic has had a "very well-vetted commercialization plan" and has shown steady clinical progress.
Still will both continue and heighten Xagenic's focus on X1, a molecular diagnostic testing platform that's fully automated, lab-free and designed to produce results within 20 minutes. To support the platform, Xagenic's team is developing a series of infectious disease tests pitched as helping reduce healthcare costs, a strategy that is sweet music to cost-conscious systems in both the developed and developing worlds.
The technology "has the potential to revolutionize clinical diagnostics and to dramatically improve patient care by enabling immediate, accurate testing at the point of care," Still said in a statement. He added that he looks forward to leading the company "through the successful completion of clinical studies … and commercial launch in the U.S. and international markets."
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