News

Michaelson Diagnostics bucks the trend with ?350,000 investment

Medical imaging firm Michelson Diagnostics Ltd (MDL) has successfully raised investment for growth in 2009, despite the economic downturn.

The company announced today that it has raised just over ?350,000 from a consortium of investors from the London Business Angels (LBA) network and from the management team.. The money will be used to support multi-centre clinical trials of its new hand-held multi-beam Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) imaging probe, and also support international commercial growth.

?We received tremendous customer interest in our new ?Vivosight? multi-beam OCT probe, when we demonstrated the working prototype at the BIOS09 show (San Jose) in January?, said Michelson?s CEO, Jon Holmes, ?and sales of our EX1301 OCT Microscope have accelerated in the last two quarters?. He added ?We plan to launch Vivosight with clinical approvals in May/June this year, and I believe that we will post triple-digit sales growth in 2009?.

MDL received early stage funding of ?600,000 in October 2007, and a further ?600,000 in July 2008, in rounds led by London Seed Capital Ltd with Catapult Venture Managers Ltd and London Business Angels. It has offices in Kent and the West Midlands, was founded in 2006 by Jon Holmes and four other ex-employees of Sira, the photonics instrumentation company.

MDL?s Chairman John Knowles commented on the company?s fundraising strategy: ?The management team has continued to achieve key milestones on time and on budget, and this has enabled a successful fundraising in a time when money is scarce, and without loss of value for existing shareholders. We are now well placed to raise a much larger sum, timed to coincide with the economic recovery and results from clinical trials.?

The ?Vivosight? multi-beam OCT imaging technology has better resolution than competing OCT systems. This could revolutionize cancer diagnosis and treatment by potentially enabling clinicians to see, in real time, (and at far higher resolution than is possible with current ultrasound, MRI or CT imaging), the location and extent of a tumour, for a range of cancer types. It is anticipated that the equipment will enable faster, more accurate cancer surgery, with major benefits for both the patient and clinician ? removing the slow, painstaking process of taking multiple samples of tissue for analysis. Primary applications are expected to be skin and oral cancer, but many other cancers will be accessible via future variants of the probe, and there are also many other clinical and non-clinical applications for this powerful new imaging technology. The company has already conducted trials on excised human cancer tissue in the UK, Germany and US, and will commence in-vivo trials during 2009.

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Editor's notes:

About London Business Angels
The London Business Angel network comprises an exclusive and experienced membership of 130 influential business leaders from the south of England, offering a total of ?50 million for investment. GLE Group is a leading provider of equity, loan, cashflow and asset finance. The GLE Group also delivers business development, international trade, property and consulting services. We create value through investment and by providing innovative and commercial approaches to economic growth successfully maximising the potential of people and businesses. GLE Group incorporates YFM Group, the most active equity investor in the UK. Together, we are a leading provider of equity finance with ?330m under management, investing from ?100,000 up to ?8 million in growing businesses throughout the UK.

London Business Angels
Chris Padfield, Investment Manager
chris@lbangels.co.uk
www.lbangels.co.uk

Michelson Diagnostics Ltd
www.michelsondiagnostics.co.uk
Michelson Diagnostics Ltd is the UK?s leading independent manufacturer and developer of Optical Coherence Tomography medical imaging equipment. Founded in 2006, it is based in SE London, UK.

March 13th, 2009