BioSkryb Inks $11.5M Seed Round

This Seed round was led by venture capital firm Anzu Partners and included the law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. The funding will accelerate BioSkryb's product roadmap and its commercialization efforts to enable enhanced levels of genomic and transcriptomic analyses for translational research and clinical diagnostics.

"Existing DNA amplification systems simply cannot provide the level of coverage and accuracy researchers need to fully understand the genomics of individual cells, where the amount of available genetic material is miniscule," said Jay West, PhD, cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of BioSkryb. "This amplification technology provides an unprecedented level of clarity and paves the way for a new era of genomic research, especially for single cell genomics in cancer research, and for bacterial genomics."

BioSkryb's proprietary genomic amplification technology allows scientists working with scarce genetic material to achieve high quality gene sequencing data. The technology provides uniform coverage of almost the entire genome, allowing for unparalleled accuracy in DNA variant calling. The technology will support a new wave of single cell and low DNA input genomics applications in diverse areas of life sciences research, including cancer biology, microbiology, and genetics.

"Bringing the study of genetics down to the cellular level will lead to unexpected discoveries about normal biology, as well as human diseases such as cancer," said Charles Gawad, MD/PhD, cofounder of BioSkryb and physician-scientist at Stanford University. "The challenge has been that the data quality produced from existing genome amplification methods is insufficient to perform these types of studies. BioSkryb's new, much more accurate genome amplification technology solves this problem and will accelerate our understanding of human and bacterial genetics, and ultimately, be used to develop single-cell diagnostics for oncology and other areas of medicine."

The company also announced that it has appointed William E. Evans, PharmD and Siddhartha C. Kadia, PhD to its Board of Directors. Dr. Evans served as St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's fifth President and CEO from 2004 to 2014 and currently holds the St. Jude Endowed Chair in Pharmacogenomics. Dr. Kadia previously served as President and CEO of EAG Laboratories in San Diego, CA, and President, Life Sciences Division at Life Technologies Corporation, a company that was acquired by Thermo Fisher in 2014.

"Drs. Evans and Kadia each bring decades of valuable leadership experience to BioSkryb, and we are delighted they are joining its Board of Directors to help the company grow and commercialize its technology globally," said David Michael, Managing Partner of Anzu Partners.

For more information about BioSkryb and its technology, please visit: https://bioskryb.com.

BioSkryb will be presenting at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference February 23-26, 2020 in Marco Island, FL.

About BioSkryb
BioSkryb is a venture-backed developer of genomic amplification technologies that deliver unprecedented coverage and fidelity for various gene sequencing applications. Its proprietary genome amplification technology was developed at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, TN. For more information, please visit: https://www.bioskryb.com/.

About Anzu Partners
Anzu Partners is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests in breakthrough industrial technologies. Anzu teams with entrepreneurs to develop and commercialize technological innovations by providing capital and deep expertise in business development, market positioning, global connectivity, and operations. For more information, please visit https://anzupartners.com. On Twitter: @anzupartners.