Canterbury Scientific Limited, a global developer and manufacturer of medical devices, announced it has completed its investment into Aptatek Biosciences, Inc., a developer of in-home health monitoring solutions for patients with chronic disease.
The investment, coupled with an option to manufacture, has been confirmed upon completion of a US$4 million seed funding round led by science investment firm IPGroup, Inc. and includes the National PKU Alliance (NPKUA).
The funding will fuel the development and clinical validation of the company’s first product that enables critical in-home monitoring of phenylketonuria (PKU). This rare inherited disorder causes the dangerous build-up of the amino acid phenylalanine in the body with very serious brain function impacts for new-borns and infants. Close monitoring of phenylalanine levels is a requirement for their entire lifetimes.
Today, diagnosis and monitoring of inborn diseases is costly, slow and inaccessible to millions of people globally, as performed only in centralised laboratories. Currently, patients have no choice but to visit a hospital or mail-in blood samples to a central lab. The investment will permit the company to develop and commercialise its platform with further potential applications in chronic kidney disease and medication management, where accurate and timely monitoring provide enormous health outcome benefits.
“With over 30 years’ experience developing and manufacturing controls and calibrators utilised by the majority of the world’s leading diagnostic companies, we have strong interest in expanding our presence in chronic disease management and through our investment group, CS Ventures, we continue to actively search for opportunities,” said Clive Seymour, CEO of Canterbury Scientific.
He added: “With this investment, we are delighted to support and help accelerate the opportunity to provide in-home solutions based on the Aptatek platform, to help transform disease management and change patients’ lives, a founding principle of our business.”
Aptatek CEO, Dr. Michael Boyce-Jacino, stated, “We are excited to have strong partners such as IPGroup, Inc., who are committed to commercialising breakthrough technology in the hard sciences and Canterbury Scientific, a company focused on high quality product development and manufacturing, to support our product manufacturing and global reach. We are also honoured to have the support of the NPKUA in the important effort to enable patient empowerment in the management of PKU.”
Christine Brown, executive director of the NPKUA added: “Home Phe monitoring for PKU has been a long-time goal of the PKU patient community, and we are excited to support the Aptatek platform."
