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Leading genetics diagnostics firm MedGenome Labs Ltd said it has completed its Series C round of $40 million after getting an additional $10 million from private lender HDFC Ltd, insurer HDFC Life and HDFC Asset Management.
Last August, it had raised $30 million in Series C from Sequoia India and Sofina s.a., with participation by Zodius Capital; Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and former CEO of Infosys; and Lakshmi Narayanan, former CEO of Cognizant.
MedGenome said in a statement it would use the funds to expand the clinical genomic testing market by penetrating all the Tier-II and Tier-III cities and democratise critical genetic tests such as non-invasive pre-natal screening (NIPT) and newborn genetic testing. It also plans to establish more genetic centres in hospitals across the country to support clinicians and to enable patients to take informed decisions.
"We believe understanding genetic information can have a big impact on the Indian healthcare industry through early detection of disease risk and development of new medicines. We are happy to see an Indian company take a lead in a deep technology area such as genomics and have decided to support MedGenome in its endeavour to make genetic tests affordable and accessible widely," said Deepak Parekh, Chairman, HDFC Group.
MedGenome has completed over 100,000 genomic tests and supported clinicians in diagnosing more than 40 per cent of unresolved cases. About 6 per cent of the children born in India have inherited paediatric diseases, which is double the worldwide occurrence rate. Sam Santhosh, founder and Chairman of MedGenome, said the goal is to significantly reduce the burden of inherited diseases in India and assist clinicians in implementing precision medicine.
MedGenome claims to operate the largest CAP-accredited Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) lab in South Asia and its diagnostics tests include many breakthroughs for genetic diagnostics including the first proprietary liquid biopsy (OncoTrack) for monitoring cancer treatment, non-invasive prenatal screening test (NIPT) for pregnant women, carrier screening for couples planning for children, and whole exome sequencing for cost-effective identification of rare mutations.
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