Spanish start-up Amadix has received €15m ($15.4m) in financing from the European Investment Bank (EIB) to advance the development and commercialisation of its diagnostic blood tests for cancer detection.
The loan is said to bolster the company’s research, development and production of its products to identify various types of cancer in the early stages before symptoms appear.
The company’s products include PreveCol, a test designed for diagnosing colorectal cancer.
PreveCol uses an algorithm combining AI-identified clinical data with the analysis of plasma biomarker levels to aid in the early detection of colorectal cancer (CRC) and advanced adenomas (AA).
The funding will also aid Amadix to develop other pipeline products, namely PancreaDix for the detection of pancreatic cancer (PaC); and DiagnoLung, for the detection of lung cancers.
PancreaDix detects and quantifies biomarkers that are differentially expressed in the blood samples of people with PaC, the company said.
DiagnoLung identifies and measures proteins that show differential expression in the blood of individuals with lung cancer.
The financing is also expected to facilitate Amadix's international growth strategy, aiding the clinical validation of PreveCol in the US, as well as establishing its presence in the US and European markets.
Amadix founder and CEO Rocío Arroyo said: “It is very encouraging to see organisations like the EIB supporting companies like ours contributing to Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and supporting our international expansion.
“It will enable us to bring to the European and US markets our disruptive blood tests for early cancer detection. Thanks to the EIB support, more people will have access to innovative solutions such as liquid biopsy to prevent cancer, a leading cause of death worldwide, to live longer and better.”
Leveraging AI for its early cancer detection tests, Amadix's technology is said to deploy an algorithm that integrates AI-identified clinical features with analysis of plasma protein and microRNA (miRNA) in plasma to detect premalignant lesions in their early stages.
