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Cytomos, an Edinburgh-based life science company that has developed a proprietary new approach to analysing cells, has secured £4 million to scale up market-testing of its technology platform Cytomos Dielectric Spectroscopy (CDS).

The investment round was led by existing investors Archangels with participation from Old College Capital, Scottish Enterprise and new investor British Business Bank.

Cytomos has developed CDS to address the unmet needs of the biopharma industry, providing a groundbreaking high-speed, scalable and low-cost revolution beyond current cell analysis systems. Scientists are under pressure to bring novel therapies to market, faster and more affordably. However, securing access to the right information at the right time is a major challenge, frequently resulting in crucial information being compromised at critical stages. Advanced therapy production processes are highly expensive and dynamic. Therefore, the ability to ‘fail fast’ minimises sunk costs in terms of time and operatingexpenditures. Through its CDS platform, Cytomos empowers biopharma to bring novel therapies to market faster and radically reduce costs by enabling critical decision making much earlier.

New investment will enable Cytomos to significantly advance the development of its technology and substantially expand the team. The company is targeting commercialisation of its platforms in 2024.

Over the past year, Cytomos has grown its operational management and strategic team with the appointments of David Rigterink (CEO) and Lindsay Fraser (CSO) who have driven the company’s industry engagement with well-known force multipliers in the bioprocessing and cell and gene therapy space including global Contract Development and Manufacturing (C(D)MO) leaders, bioprocessing solution market leaders, as well as cutting-edge TechBio partners set to dominate the Advanced Therapy and Medical Products (ATMP) space. 

Sarah Hardy, director and head of new investments at Archangels, said: “As a highly innovative, Scottish early-stage life science company with global horizons, Cytomos is an excellent fit for our investment portfolio. Its ambitious vision to improve real time cell analysis in formats to better suit the end users will revolutionise the development and commercialisation of products in the bioprocessing and cell and gene therapies spaces.  We’re looking forward to working with David and the team as they drive the business forward, making smarter, faster and more accurate cell analysis finally more accessible.”

David Rigterink, CEO at Cytomos, said: “We are uniquely positioned in harnessing the power of consumer electronics technology to meet the emerging, complex needs of the bioprocess industry. On the back of a very successful year for Cytomos, this new funding will now allow us to scale up our engagement with industry partners. We truly believe that, through our CDS technology, we offer a powerful platform which will help the scientific community bring novel therapies to market faster and radically reduce costs by making better informed, game-changing decisions a lot earlier.”

Kerry Sharp, Director of Entrepreneurship and Investment at Scottish Enterprise, said: “We’ve worked with Cytomos for many years so it’s great to see the team expanding and the company secure the investment needed to advance the ground-breaking CDS platform towards commercialisation next year.”

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About Archangels

Founded in 1992, Archangels is a leading business angel syndicate investing in early-stage Scottish life sciences and technology companies. Archangels comprises around 120 members and an eleven strong board and executive team. There are currently 21 companies within the portfolio.