Tagomics raises £6.7m to improve disease diagnosis

Tagomics, developers of a cutting-edge platform for comprehensive disease insight and diagnosis, today announces a £6.7m funding round.

This achievement follows a £1.6m pre-seed round led by IQ Capital and Start Codon and including grant funding from Innovate UK. The investment will accelerate Tagomics’ scientific research and product development, with the goal of delivering improvements in cancer and other diseases’ diagnosis and treatment. The investment was led by Calculus Capital, with participation from Illumina Ventures, IQ Capital, Agilent Ventures, Mercia Ventures and the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia Ventures and is part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), Meltwind and OMX Ventures.

Tagomics launched in July 2020 as a spin-out from the University of Birmingham, to build upon the pivotal research led by Dr. Robert Neely, the company’s Chief Scientific Officer. Tagomics has since developed a pioneering platform which seamlessly combines “omics” technologies, including genomics (detecting mutations), epigenomics (studying chemical ‘switches’ on the genome), and fragmentomics (the analysis of DNA fragmentation patterns in the blood). By integrating these methods and applying advanced data analysis and machine learning, the Tagomics platform can provide a 360° understanding of human health and disease. It aims to discover new markers of cancer and develop strategic partnerships, advancing drug development and therapy selection for patients.

Since the investment Tagomics has become the first company to occupy the new Illumina Ventures’ Labs space in Cambridge. The Labs provide a unique advantage to accelerate value creation for genomics start-ups, from company formation to Series A financings, via access to capital, sequencing, mentorship, and fully equipped genomics lab capabilities.

Dr. Jack Kennefick, CEO and Co-founder at Tagomics, said: “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. We’re pleased to welcome such an experienced group of investors on board to help us accelerate the development of our platform and support our efforts in expanding the capabilities of genomic medicine.”

Elizabeth Klein, Investment Director at Calculus, said: “We are delighted to support Tagomics as the company embarks on its next phase of expansion, applying its innovative technology to discover new markers for disease diagnosis and management. We were attracted to the company not only for its novel science, but its exceptional management team led by CEO Dr Jack Kennefick, an inventor on 3 of the company’s patents and recipient of the prestigious Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Enterprise Fellowship. The Chair, Dr Kirk Malloy, has more than 25 years’ experience in growing life science companies, and NED Pascal Bamford, has previously held leadership positions at MonoGen, Epic Sciences, Genomic Health (now Exact Sciences), Ventana-Roche and currently Akoya Biosciences.”

Nick Naclerio, Founding Partner at Illumina Ventures said: “We are excited to welcome Tagomics as the first European participant in our recently launched Illumina Ventures Labs program. We expect 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.”

The current MEIF investment phase has now completed with the British Business Bank launching the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II at the end of this month (February 2024).

The Midlands Engine Investment Fund is supported financially by the European Union using funding from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020 and the European Investment Bank.