News
Axol Bioscience raises £3.2m
April 7, 2022
An extension of the previous funding round brings the total raised to £7 million GBP (circa $9.2 million USD)
- Funding will support the continued development of Axol’s human iPS cell lines and reagents, and the expansion of its commercial team
Axol Bioscience Ltd. (Axol), an established provider of iPSC-derived cells, media, and characterization services for life science discovery, today announced that it has raised £3.2 million GBP (circa $4.2 million USD) in the extension of its previous funding round, bringing the total raised to £7 million GBP (circa $9.2 million USD). The round was led by existing investors Calculus Capital, Par Equity and Scottish Enterprise, with support from Meltwind, including early investor Dr Jonathan Milner.
The funds will be used to bring new human induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) products and service solutions for cardiac, neuroscience, and immune cell modeling to the drug discovery and screening markets, including Axol’s recently developed comprehensive in vitro proarrhythmia assay (CiPA)-validated human iPSC-derived cardiomyocytes. Funding will enable Axol to further optimize cell culture quality and iPSC manufacturing capabilities at its Edinburgh, UK, site based at the Roslin Institute, as well as support recruitment efforts to expand its commercial team. It will also facilitate the continued development of the Company’s digital platform.
Liam Taylor, CEO, Axol Bioscience, commented: “At Axol, we’re setting a new standard in iPSC quality and manufacture. This investment enables us to continue to build and apply our quality-driven mindset to develop robust, reliable, ready-to-use iPSCs for pre-clinical R&D and drug development, as well as to focus on the expansion of our commercial team.”
Dr Thomas Stratford, Interim Chairman, Axol Bioscience, added: “We are delighted to have secured additional funding from our existing investors in this oversubscribed round. This reflects both the potential of Axol’s iPSC technology and products, and the unrivalled expertise of our team. This investment reinforces our ongoing mission to develop the high-quality, validated human cell biology tools needed to drive innovation in medical research and drug discovery.”
Dr Jonathan Milner, Investor and CEO, Meltwind, said: “Axol is well positioned in the global iPSC market to support advances in drug screening and discovery. We look forward to the Company’s future iPSC product developments, poised to provide more physiologically relevant and consistent human disease models and screening assays to, ultimately, progress next-generation therapies for neuroscience and cardiac diseases to the clinic, faster.”
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About Axol Bioscience www.axolbio.com
Axol Bioscience Ltd has been an industry leader for nearly a decade in the supply of human iPSC-derived cells from healthy and disease-state donors. Those products are supported and enhanced by optimized cell culture systems and media formulations that ensure quality, consistent cell behaviors, and expedited maturation. In addition, Axol is an experienced provider of custom services for disease modeling and toxicity screening to support drug discovery.
To best serve a growing drug discovery customer base, Axol continues to add in-demand assay capabilities to better characterize product cell lines and provide custom services. Most recently, Axol added electrophysiology capability and expertise with an in-house multi-electrode array system and a dedicated scientific thought leader in the area to guide customers and collaborators through relevant data sets for the best disease or functional cell models for their applications.
Follow Axol Bioscience on Twitter @axolbio and LinkedIn @Axol Bioscience Ltd
