NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Genomic Prediction, developer of the world’s first and only polygenic disease screening tests for improving IVF health outcomes, announced today that it has raised $4.5 million through the sale of preferred stock. Nimble Ventures led the oversubscribed round, joined by new investors including PeopleFund, and bolstered by earlier investors from the company's initial funding round in early 2017.
“Until now, IVF families have not had access to technology for broadly reducing disease risk to their child in embryo,” said Genomic Prediction CEO Laurent Christian Asker Melchior Tellier. “Many of these diseases are preventable. Our cost-effective methodology of polygenic scoring builds on old technology from industrial agriculture, but we are the first in history to develop this technology to protect the human embryo. We are privileged to have an extraordinary team of scientists and investors, and a unique opportunity to safeguard the lives, health and wellness of the IVF children conceived in the 2 million IVF cycles globally every year. We are reducing the risk of life-shortening disease to children, bringing IVF to the information age.”
Genomic Prediction is the first company to translate genomic predictors of polygenic disease risk into disease prevention and improved clinical care in IVF. With its proprietary IVF genetic testing technologies, EP?T and ?SEQ, Genomic Prediction is able to simultaneously screen hundreds of single-gene disorders, and to score human embryos for multi-gene disease risk. This allows IVF couples and clinics to reduce the risk to the embryo of Type 1 Diabetes, Basal Cell Carcinoma, Ovarian Cancer, Heart Attack, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, and many more disorders. This screening reduces disease incidence, protecting health from the start: in-embryo.
Genomic Prediction will use the new funding to expand its sales team and data science capability. This capitalizes on a rush of demand following the release and New Jersey Department of Health approval of the EP?T and ?SEQ tests, as well as Genomic Prediction's signing of confidential R&D agreements with key distributors and industry leaders.
Genomic Prediction recently signed its first clinic and distributor clients, and recently released a new paper “Genomic Prediction of Complex Disease Risk” quantifying some of its human polygenic disease prediction capabilities, validated on 3rd party biobank cohorts.
“I take my hat off to what they’re doing, it’s a potential revolution,” says professor Simon Fishel, president of the CARE Fertility Group clinics in the UK, and former Deputy Scientific Director of the world’s first IVF clinic, with Nobel prize winning colleagues Dr. Steptoe and Dr. Edwards.
About Genomic Prediction: Genomic Prediction is the inventor of PGT-P: Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Polygenic disease, the technology underlying the company's flagship EP?T and ?SEQ tests. Incorporated on May 1, 2017, Genomic Predication, has been featured in The Economist, The WSJ, and New Scientist. For more information, visit www.genomicprediction.com. Contact: contact@genomicprediction.com.
