A University of Rochester Medical Center startup that makes biosensors has landed millions in funding from outside of New York.
Adarza BioSystems of West Henrietta has gathered $5 million in venture capital. Adarza will use the money to expand its manufacturing facility in St. Peters, Missouri, launch its first product and further development a second product.
The $5 million comes from a combination of Cultivation Capital’s life science fund and Lewis & Clark Ventures, both of St. Louis, as well as the venture capital arm of Siemens, the German electronics and electrical engineering company.
The CEO of Siemens Venture Capital said Adarza’s work can be of great use to the medical research community.
“This technology, with the potential ability to interrogate hundreds of molecules in a drop of blood, provides the clinician or researcher a powerful tool for his or her applications,” Ralf Schnell said in a statement.
Adarza makes special optical chips that can detect proteins in biological organisms. After making the chips, the company’s laboratory staff then shines a laser beam on the chip to see the proteins. They are one of dozens of local companies that use photonics in their chips.
The companies funding Adarza for this round say they’re happy to help the company expand into Missouri’s life sciences community.
“Lewis & Clark Ventures believes that Adarza’s technology is an important advancement toward analyzing proteins, the actual functional unit of cells, with the speed and scale at which nucleic acids are measured today,” Brian Hopcraft, managing director for Lewis & Clark Ventures, said in a statement.
