Definiens closes €10 Million Round to Grow its Clinical Digital Pathology Business
Investments into the clinical digital pathology space continue to be made. Recent news of Definiens private funding, expanding on their portfolio and experience in research and development and pharmaceutical shows increasing interest in the clinical market. Good news for healthcare and us consumers.
Munich, Germany, Oct 1, 2012 – Definiens AG, the leader in Image Analysis for Digital Pathology, today announced that it has closed a private round of financing of €10 million. The financing was led by new investor Gilde Healthcare Partners, a transatlantic investment firm with €450 million under management, focusing on the private healthcare sector. Existing investors, including TVM, Cipio and Definiens’ management also participated in the financing round.
Definiens will primarily use the funding for commercial expansion of its current business and to develop and commercialize innovative products for Clinical Digital Pathology. The company’s solutions are currently being used for research and development by all major pharmaceutical companies as well as an increasing number of diagnostic companies in tissue based diagnostic biomarker development.
Dr. Janke Dittmer, partner at Gilde Healthcare Partners, has joined the Company’s Supervisory Board.
“This new round of funding allows Definiens’ to grow its Clinical Digital Pathology business,” said Thomas Heydler, CEO of Definiens. “Gilde Healthcare Partners joins our team of committed investors. With their financial support and partnership, we will build on the success of our existing business and increase our presence in the clinical routine use of Digital Pathology.”
“Digital Pathology combined with the right image analysis tools has the potential to transform cancer diagnosis. As the market leader in image analysis for Digital Pathology Definiens is well positioned to unlock the full potential of tissue based diagnostics and drive the clinical adoption of quantitative Digital Pathology.” said Janke Dittmer. “We led this investment round because we believe that Definiens has a set of market leading products, a strong patent portfolio and unique capabilities to turn new concepts into clinically relevant products which will benefit people suffering from cancer around the world.”
Definiens’ proprietary Cognition Network Technology® enables best in class analysis of Digital Pathology images, but can also be used on other types of images. It is the brainchild of Definiens’ founder, CTO and Nobel Laureate Prof Dr Gerd Binnig. Its context based segmentation approach leads to unsurpassed accuracy in detecting structures of interest and is robust with regard to variations in the tissue and the scanner used.
About Gilde Healthcare Partners
Netherlands-based Gilde Healthcare Partners is a transatlantic growth capital firm focused on private healthcare technology and service companies. It has over €450 million under management and invests in the areas of therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices and healthcare services. Gilde successfully builds healthcare businesses across Europe and US, investing up to €15 million in a single portfolio company. For a list of Gilde’s portfolio companies please visit the website at www.gildehealthcare.com.
About Definiens
Definiens is the leading provider of image analysis and data mining solutions for quantitative digital pathology in the life sciences, diagnostic biomarkers and healthcare industries. Definiens software provides detailed readouts from whole tissue slides, cell-based assays and full body scans and allows correlating this information with data derived from other sources. By automating analysis workflows, Definiens helps pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, research institutions, clinical service organizations and pathologists to generate new knowledge and supports better decisions in research, diagnostics and therapy. Definiens’ vision is to open new fields of research, to contribute to development of personalized medicine and to significantly improve the quality of patients’ lives.
Definiens is headquartered in Munich, Germany, and has offices throughout the United States. Further information is available at www.definiens.com.
