James Posillico, president and CEO of Molecular Biometrics LLC
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Hoping for a short infancy, Molecular Biometrics LLC, an in vitro fertilization diagnostics company, is working on a $12 million Series A financing from Boston-based Oxford Bioscience Partners.
The financing, which is expected to be closed in early September, will be used to fund production, distribution and research into other uses for its core technology. The capital comes, ironically, within weeks of the 30th anniversary of the first baby to be born using in vitro fertilization (IVF).
Molecular Biometrics has developed a technique, using near-infrared spectroscopy, to detect biomarkers that can determine the viability of fertilized eggs within minutes, before reimplantation. The process increases the chances of successful implantation by 10 percent per cycle, the company said. Treatments run an average of three cycles at a cost of about $15,000 each.
“The golden fleece of IVF has always been ‘how do you select good embryos’ and we see tremendous opportunity with this technology,” said James Posillico, president and CEO of Molecular Biometrics.
The company is based in Chester, N.J. and has an R&D facility in Montreal. It was spun off from McGill University in 2005 and raised an initial $3 million from angel investors.
Couples have been delaying pregnancy until later in life, which is when infertility problems begin to mount, creating demand for IVF and other treatments. A common side effect is the possibility of multiple births, which can lead to health issues and deepen the financial burden on insurers and families.
The company’s technology will initially be geared toward reproductive health, but Molecular Biometrics stated it plans to investigate the diagnostics methods for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
“It has all the criteria for success and has the potential to address a real need in the IVF marketplace because it offers a better tool for people to make very important choices,” said Michael Lytton, general partner at Oxford, which organized the Series A funding.
The methods for determining which embryos have the greatest chances of successfully developing in the womb have not changed in 30 years, said Posillico, with the healthiest eggs chosen based purely on physical attributes using a microscope.
Molecular Biometrics has performed clinical studies using its technology on about 700 patients in U.S., Japan and Europe, and it is now communicating with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval. But Molecular Biometrics has its sights set overseas first. It plans to introduce the product in the U.K., Japan and Australia during first-quarter 2009.
“One sperm, one egg, one baby. It is the Holy Grail in the IVF industry,” said Jeff Emig, principal at Brook Venture Partners in Wakefield and an active player in the IVF market. “It is the insurance companies that could really drive this, but they would have to see the evidence that it is going to save them real money,” said Emig.
Emig cited other companies that are working toward the one sperm, one egg, one baby: ReproCure LLC of Texas and the Bridge Centre in London. Other local companies working on solutions to fertilization challenges are Brook Venture portfolio company ReproMedix Corp. of Woburn, which offers a line of fertility test products and BioXcell of Beverly, which has developed a medical device designed to be implanted in a woman’s body as an alternative to in vitro fertilization.
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