SAN DIEGO– Pleno Inc., a multi-omic instrument platform company revolutionizing biological target detection for clinical testing and biomedical research, announced the close of $40 million in Series A financing led by Deerfield Management Company with participation by Foresite Capital. Launched in 1994, Deerfield Management Company is an investment firm dedicated to advancing healthcare through information, investment, and philanthropy—all toward the end goal of cures for disease, improved quality of life, and reduced cost of care. Founded in 2011, Foresite Capital is a multi-stage healthcare and life sciences investment firm that uses a data science-driven approach to invest in companies that leverage biology and big data to transform healthcare.
“Deerfield is proud to lead Pleno’s Series A financing,” said Andrew ElBardissi, MD, Partner at Deerfield Management. “Pleno’s team has developed a versatile platform at the intersection of technology and life sciences which has the potential to disrupt existing sequencing and multi-omic approaches that are critical for drug development and clinical diagnostics.”
Pleno’s unique enabling technology called Hypercoding™, leverages signal processing techniques derived from the telecom industry to deliver ultra-high plexity targeted biological information – including DNA, RNA, methylation, and proteomic content – at high throughput, increased precision and performance.
“Genotyping and sequencing have enhanced our understanding of the molecular drivers of disease and its response to treatment, particularly in oncology. Yet the cost and increasing complexity of these centralized measurements causes healthcare disparities,” said Dr. Vik Bajaj, Managing Director at Foresite Capital. “The impressive work that Pieter and his team at Pleno are doing will potentially reduce costs and broaden access to these critical technologies for patients worldwide.”
The newly raised funds will accelerate the development of Pleno’s Hypercoding™ instrument platform, called RAPTOR™, which is slated for early customer access in 2023 and full availability in 2024. RAPTOR expected to deliver ultra-high target multiplexing combined with high dynamic range and very low limit of detection (LoD), while still being able to process anywhere from 8 to 384 samples per run. Instrument run-times will range between 1 to 3 hours, depending on the level of target multiplexing, dynamic range and LoD required by each customer’s assay and application.
“We are incredibly excited to work with Deerfield Management and Foresite Capital as we continue to accelerate the development of our groundbreaking instrument platform,” said Pieter van Rooyen, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Pleno. “The overwhelming interest already received from potential customers has clearly shown just how important this technology is and how much it is needed across a wide variety of applications, ranging from early cancer screening, NIPT and infectious diseases, to pharmacogenomics, proteomics and agrigenomics.”
Pleno is based in San Diego’s Sorrento Mesa innovation hub proximate to a robust talent pool of experienced scientists, telecommunication engineers, and biotechnology innovators. The company currently employs 24 full-time employees and plans to continue to grow its team rapidly in the coming months.
