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Crescent Diagnostics Secures Euro 1.5 Million ($2.2 million) for its Predictive test for Osteoporotic Fracture
Crescent Diagnostics Ltd, a developer of novel tests for predicting osteoporotic fracture risk, today announced that it has raised Euro 1.5 million ($2.2 million) in Series A funding to support the development of BQT®, a predictive test for the disease. This funding is to support additional clinical testing for Regulatory Approvals in the US and EU.
Crescent's novel test will enable physicians to diagnose the risk of osteoporosis-related fracture both quickly and easily, using a small nail clipping.Crescent's research has shown that the structure and quantity of the chemical bonds in the human toenail is indicative of future hip fracture risk and is independent of bone mineral density (BMD), the standard test today. When BQT® test development is complete, a physician will be able to send a nail clipping to a laboratory for analysis, with results made available to the patient within a matter of days. The company is using technology developed at University of Limerick.
More than 60 million women over 50 are at risk of developing osteoporosis in the US alone and under-diagnosis is a major problem with less than a quarter of at-risk women tested. The current gold standard screening method, Dual X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA), is costly, time consuming for patients and only assesses BMD, which is just one of many risk factors contributing to bone fractures. Many patients with acceptable DXA values still suffer fractures and more accurate tests for fracture risk are therefore required.
Based currently at Invent DCU the company is now collaborating with the Biomedical Diagnostics Institute (BDI) at DCU University to further investigate the relationship between nails and fracture risk using Raman spectroscopy funded by an Innovation Partnership granted by Enterprise Ireland.
The €1.5m funding round was a syndicated deal between AIB Seed Capital Fund co-managed by Enterprise Equity Venture Capital, Bank of Ireland Seed Fund managed by Kernel Capital, and existing venture investor Seroba BioVentures.
