DBL Investors News
DBL Investors News
VCs back transplant test firm
January 05, 2006
Kleiner Perkins and others pile in for a $26.5-million investment in startup XDx.
Red Herring
January 5, 2006- Venture capitalists invested $26.5 million Thursday in XDx, a startup with technology that may help prevent doctors from transplanting organs that are genetically incompatible with their recipients.
XDx’s technology monitors a patient’s immune system by measuring gene expression in a patient’s blood. Doctors can use this information to determine if a patient is at risk of rejecting a heart transplant, for example.
The waiting list for organ transplants is now over 90,000 patients long in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. XDx’s technology could help ensure that the limited supply of organs go to people best able to accept them.
The company has now raised a total of $74 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers; Texas Pacific Group Ventures; Duff Ackerman & Goodrich; the Sprout Group; Burrill & Company; Integral Capital Partners; and the Bay Area Equity Fund.
The company said its post-money valuation, or the company’s worth after it receives this round of investment, is now more than $115 million.
‘Several Milestones’
“We believe this significant increase in valuation reflects the attainment of several milestones for the company,” said XDx CEO Pierre Cassigneul.
The San Francisco-based company received Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments certification during November of 2004 and launched its testing product during January 2005. Since then, the company’s product has been installed in 11 transplant centers in the U.S.
“XDx has established a leadership role in molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine,” said John Cadeddu, an investor with Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, who led the financing round.
Brook Byers, who has led the charge on personalized medicine investing for Kleiner Perkins, is XDx’s chairman. Mr. Byers helped get Genentech off the ground and is also invested in personalized-medicine startup Genomic Health, based in Redwood City, CA.