Tagomics, a spinout from the University of Birmingham working on comprehensive disease insight and diagnosis, has announced £6.7m in funding. Leading the investment was Calculus Capital with contributions from Illumina Ventures, IQ Capital, Agilent Ventures, Mercia Ventures, the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, Meltwind, and OMX Ventures. Tagomics was launched last year based on research led by Dr. Robert Neely from the university’s School of Chemistry. Their research investigated identifying the earliest detectable changes to the genome, methylation, which switches genes on and off. Three patents resulting from this work were foundational for Tagomics.
Current diagnostic tools struggle to read methylation, which led the research team to develop a technology that could. The result is the Tagomics platform, which integrates omics technologies, including genomics, epigenomics, and fragmentomics, to discover new markers for cancer and develop strategic partnerships to advance drug development and therapy selection for patients.
This funding round will accelerate Tagomics’ scientific research and product development further. Dr. Jack Kennefick, CEO and co-founder at Tagomics, stated that “The multiomic capabilities of Tagomics’ approach enable more comprehensive insight into diseases such as cancer; these insights will enable us to develop simpler and more accurate means of diagnosing and treating patients.”
Elizabeth Klein, Investment Director at Calculus, said the company was attracted not only to Tagomics’ novel science but management team led by CEO Dr. Jack Kennefick. Nick Naclerio, Founding Partner at Illumina Ventures, said that “our investment of capital, lab facilities, and sequencing technologies, alongside other syndicate members will accelerate Tagomics’ path to market. We look forward to seeing the impact of their innovative multiomic approach on both research and clinical applications.”
