T2 Biosystems® announced today that it has closed a $23 million series D financing. The round was led by new investor Aisling Capital, LLC, which was joined by existing investors Flagship Ventures, Polaris Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Physic Ventures, Partners Healthcare, Arcus Ventures, RA Capital, Camros Capital and WS Investments. In conjunction with the financing, Josh Bilenker, M.D., Principal at Aisling Capital, will join T2 Biosystems’s Board of Directors. The proceeds from this round will support ongoing development and clinical trials as the Company moves towards regulatory approval and commercialization of their T2MR diagnostic technology, as well as enable expansion of the Company’s partnering program. T2 Biosystems’s lead product is a rapid detection assay for Candida, a fungal pathogen known to cause blood stream infections and sepsis.
“T2 Biosystems is developing a platform that will fundamentally improve current diagnostic standards by enabling a broad menu of molecular and immunodiagnostic tests from a single sample,” commented John McDonough, CEO and President of T2 Biosystems. “Our direct detection method has shown superior performance on a broad range of analytes with high sensitivity, specificity and precision in comparison studies with real patient samples. We look forward to the beta launch of our T2Dx diagnostic instrument this fall.”
McDonough continued, “The new funding will support the activities to advance our T2Candida test panel toward an expected FDA submission in the second half of 2012, and accelerate the development of our pipeline of additional diagnostic tests focused on sepsis, infectious disease, therapeutic drug monitoring and coagulation.”
“T2 Biosystems has generated provocative data showing reliable and sensitive detection of DNA, protein and small molecule targets in whole blood and other raw clinical samples,” said Dr. Bilenker. “An affordable benchtop system with walk-away usability for lab technicians and a wide potential menu of tests could transform the way lab medicine is practiced. Importantly, the management team at T2 Biosystems has an impressive track record of developing partnerships within the industry and bringing novel biotechnology products through development and into the market.”
The T2MR technology is a direct detection diagnostic method that eliminates the need for sample purification and growth of blood cultures and provides sensitive and rapid results in less than 2 hours, compared to current standards that require one or more days. The T2Dx benchtop instrument is the first device to utilize the T2MR technology to analyze unprocessed samples for important classes of diagnostic targets. T2 Biosystems’s lead product, the T2Candida assay, is designed to provide life and cost-saving benefits to patients and hospitals through direct detection and multiplexed analysis of five species of the fungal pathogen Candida. Data from evaluations of the T2Candida assay will be presented at upcoming medical meetings.