WALTHAM, Mass., Dec. 14, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On-Q-ity, a next-generation oncology diagnostics company developing products to improve cancer therapy effectiveness, today announced that it has closed an additional $5 million investment from Atlas Venture as part of its Series A funding. This investment brings On-Q-ity's total Series A funding to $26 million. Atlas joins Bessemer Venture Partners, Physic Ventures and Northgate Capital, in this round, led by MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures. Bruce Booth, a partner at Atlas Venture, will join the company's Board of Directors.
"I am thrilled to add to an already strong investor syndicate for development of our novel predictive biomarker and circulating tumor cell (CTC) diagnostic products," said Mara Aspinall, President and Chief Executive Officer of On-Q-ity. "Atlas will be a great addition to our investor group and our board. We are privileged to have a tremendous group of investors from the east and west coasts and with deep expertise in the life sciences - both in therapeutics and diagnostics as well as personalized medicine."
"We believe On-Q-ity will bring about a paradigm shift in how medical oncologists treat their patients in the near future," stated Bruce Booth, Atlas Venture Partner. "Mara's vision, her track record in bringing new diagnostics to market and the entire On-Q-ity team's singular focus to improve cancer therapy effectiveness while reducing costs is inspiring and we look forward to helping them achieve this goal."
Booth will join Sue Siegel from MDV, Steve Kraus from Bessemer Venture Partners and Dion Madsen from Physic Ventures on the On-Q-ity Board of Directors.
About On-Q-ity
On-Q-ity is a next-generation diagnostics company transforming cancer treatment through non-invasive diagnostic monitoring. The company is developing innovative diagnostics to identify the unique characteristics of an individual's cancer, predicting the response to therapy, and monitoring the efficacy of treatment. On-Q-ity was formed through the merger of Cellective DX, a developer of microfluidics devices to capture and analyze circulating tumor cells from the blood of cancer patients, with The DNA Repair Company, a molecular diagnostics company developing biomarker panels to predict response to cancer therapy based on DNA repair pathways in tumors. The company's CTC and biomarker technologies originated from groundbreaking research at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and MIT, respectively. Headquartered in Waltham, MA, On-Q-ity is funded by Atlas Venture, Bessemer Venture Partners, MDV-Mohr Davidow Ventures, Physic Ventures and Northgate Capital. For more information: www.On-Q-ity.com.
About Atlas
Atlas Venture is a leading early-stage venture capital firm that invests in technology and life sciences companies. Since inception in 1980, we have helped build over 300 companies in more than 16 different countries. Over the past decade, 48 portfolio companies have been acquired and 50 are now public companies with an aggregate market capitalization of over $15 billion. The firm is currently investing from its eighth fund and manages over $2.5 billion in committed capital. For more information, please visit www.atlasventure.com