ALAMEDA, Calif., Jan. 12 — Singulex, Inc. today announced that it has closed a $19 million financing round, led by JAFCO Co., Ltd. and supported by existing investors including OrbiMed Advisors and Fisk Ventures. The financing round will support the commercialization of Singulex technologies in the diagnostics market. As part of the financing, Hironori Hozoji, investment officer for JAFCO Life Science Investment, will join the company’s Board of Directors.

“With these funds, we are confident we have the resources to develop our immunoassay technology for use in the diagnostics field,” said Philippe Goix, PhD, CEO of Singulex. “Already, the assays we have developed and optimized for our pharmaceutical partners have enabled them to see biomarker level differences in blood samples with and without drugs that they had not been able to see before, thus offering new insights for their clinical trials.”

Singulex has closed partnerships with multiple large pharmaceutical companies to use Erenna technology and immunoassays to help them better understand the effects of their compounds early in preclinical studies and clinical trials. With its ability to detect and measure minute protein biomarker changes at very low levels, Singulex’s technology also has significant potential for clinical applications in personalized medicine across multiple diseases.

Singulex will use the funds from this financing to deploy its product and services in the emerging molecular clinical diagnostic market. Initially, the company will focus on cardiovascular disease risk diagnostics using its assay platform for the biomarker c Troponin I (cTnI), a well-validated marker for cardiac necrosis.

“Singulex’s steady progress in publishing strong data from premier medical schools in the country indicated that the Erenna technology can make significant contributions to the diagnostics field, specifically in the cardiovascular area but also across a wide range of diseases. This makes an attractive investment opportunity,” noted Hozoji. “Not only that, but the potential for the Singulex technology to be used to determine which patients respond to specific drugs should position the company to be a leader in personalized medicine.”