Biognosys, a Swiss-based provider of services and tools for highly multiplexed protein quantification, said today it has won $5 million in an extended Series C financing round toward its goal of bringing proteomics to the broader life sciences research market.
Biognosys said it would use the proceeds of the financing to extend its commercial operations, as well as to accelerate the development of next-generation proteomics workflows and products for high-content and high-throughput protein analysis.
“The funds will help us to further extend our technological lead, to accelerate the development of new products and workflows, and to better address the life science research market outside the classical proteomics field,” Biognosys CEO and co-founder Oliver Rinner, Ph.D., said in a statement.
He noted that while development of large-scale proteomics techniques has traditionally lagged behind genomics, with researchers using gene expression as a proxy for protein expression, that has changed with the introduction of high-resolution liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) instruments enabling simultaneous quantification of thousands of proteins in a single experiment.
“The feedback that we get from our customers shows there is a shift in the perception of proteomics, away from a highly specialized analytical tool and toward a universally applicable technology for mode-of-action studies and biomarker development,” Dr. Rinner added.
Founded in 2008 as a spin-off from the lab of proteomics pioneer Ruedi Aebersold, Ph.D., at ETH Zurich, Biognosys provides contract research services for high-content protein quantification from any species in any biological matrix to facilitate translational research.
Biognosys offers two main label-free protein quantification platforms. One is Hyper Reaction Monitoring (HRM), a label-free discovery proteomics workflow invented by the company and designed for identifying differentially expressed proteins or highly multiplexed protein quantification on a proteome level. HRM allows an unmatched proteome coverage with reproducible and precise quantification of up to 9000 proteins per sample, according to Biognosys.
The company also offers label-free targeted proteomic workflows intended to allow absolute quantification of up to 150 predefined proteins that can be analyzed in a high-throughput mode in hundreds or thousands of samples.
Biognosys’ discovery proteomics solutions include HRM-MS™, an HRM mass spectrometry-based next-generation proteomics technology invented by the company for quantification of complete proteomes. HRM is designed to enable reproducible and precise quantification of thousands of proteins in a single instrument run with data-independent acquisition (DIA, or SWATH).
For targeted proteomics, Biognosys markets Multiple and Parallel Reaction Monitoring (MRM and PRM), targeted proteomics techniques designed to offer highly specific and sensitive quantification of selected proteins from complex biological samples. According to the company, researchers can achieve absolute quantification of up to 100 target proteins per run with a dynamic range of six orders of magnitude.
And for both targeted and discovery proteomics, the company sells corresponding calibration kits and software designed to support their respective workflows and allow easy implementation within a lab.
The company said the financing was raised from new and existing investors, without naming them. Last year, the company also did not name the corporate investment fund from which it raised an undisclosed “significant” amount of Series C financing toward establishing business development and service operations in the U.S., as well as developing new workflows and products for high-content protein analysis.
But in 2011, when Biognosys closed a CHF 2.7 million ($2.8 million) Series A financing, the company named investors that included Hellmut Kirchner, co-founder of Germany’s first venture fund TVM, Redalpine Capital I—which led the company’s seed round in 2009—ZKB Start-up Finance, the venture arm of Cantonal Bank of Zurich, several private investors, and Syngenta Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Syngenta.
Biognosys is headquartered in Schlieren, Switzerland, with offices in Beverly, MA.