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Greenville medical company secures $18M in Series C fundraising

Jason Thomas //December 20, 2022//

Greenville medical company secures $18M in Series C fundraising

Jason Thomas //December 20, 2022//

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Greenville-based Kiyatec Inc., a commercial cancer diagnostics company with ties to Clemson University and Prisma Health, has closed on its Series C funding round totaling $18 million from new and existing investors.

New investor Bruker (Nasdaq: BRKR) led the financing and was joined by existing investors Seae Ventures, VentureSouth, and LabCorp (NYSE: LH), a Kiyatec news release stated. Use of funds will focus on accelerating adoption of the company’s commercially available clinical testing and preclinical pharma services, which add value across the life cycle of successful cancer drugs, according to the release.

Born from technology developed at Clemson University, the company uses functional precision oncology in its diagnostic tool kit, including its first commercial assay, 3D Predict Glioma, for use in glioblastoma and other brain cancer patient care.

Kiyatec focuses on functional precision oncology, in which clinically relevant laboratory models measure the response of living cells to cancer drugs, the release stated. In this emerging field, the gold standard for performance is direct correlation between measured response in the lab and real world, patient-matched clinical outcomes.

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"Transforming therapy selection for cancer patients — which functional precision oncology is positioned to deliver — relies on meaningfully connecting cell death in the lab to matched cells also dying in the patient’s body, i.e., to clinical response,” said Kiyatec CEO Matt Gevaert in the release “This unlocks the potential to significantly improve cancer outcomes, a mission we’re proud to be advancing.”

Kiyatec’s analytically validated 3D-Predict Glioma test informs therapy selection in the clinic for glioblastoma and other high grade glioma patients and is commercially available in the U.S., the release stated.

As a complement to its clinical testing, Kiyatec’s preclinical 3D cell culture services augment pharma clients’ drug development by providing clinically relevant assessment of primary human drug response prior to clinical studies, the release stated. With demonstrated strong clinical correlation, Kiyatec’s platform addresses significant limitations of historic preclinical testing approaches that have lower correlation to patient outcomes.

The advantages of its clinically correlated platform, and its applicability to complex immune oncology therapies, are drivers of Kiyatec’s growing revenue in preclinical services, the release stated. Accommodating this growth is well-timed, the release stated, with respect to the company’s recently expanded laboratory and office space as the anchor tenant of Main Street Labs in downtown Greenville.

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