BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - IntegraGen closed a second funding round in which it raised €8 million from both new and existing investors.

The funding was led by AGF Private Equity, of Paris, a first-time investor in IntegraGen, but involved existing shareholders Paris-based venture capital funds CDC Entreprises Innovation, Bioam and SGAM Alternative Investments, as well as Baytech Venture Capital, of Munich, Germany.

It brings to €20 million the total funding the company has raised since it was founded in July 2000. An initial funding round completed in June 2001 netted it €6.4 million, while it raised a further €5.3 million in a bridge financing arranged in April 2004, all of which has since been converted into equity.

IntegraGen CEO Jan Mous told BioWorld International that the company now has sufficient funding to carry it to breakeven, anticipated by the end of 2007, thanks to revenues generated from diagnostic tests it already has developed and from a new one due on the market next year.

The company, which is based at the Genopole, the biotechnology science and business park at Evry, south of Paris, uses a proprietary gene identification technology platform called GenomeHIP (Genome Hybrid Identity Profiling). The technology was developed by the French National Genotyping Center (NGC), which spawned IntegraGen in July 2000 and granted it an exclusive license for GenomeHIP.

Combined with bioinformatics techniques, GenomeHIP is designed to discover the genetic loci involved in multi-factorial diseases, such as autism, diabetes and obesity. GenomeHIP compares the genomes of family members suffering from the same disease and then selects and scores all the identical regions by descent between the genomes.

IntegraGen is developing a pipeline of what it calls IntegraTests - fully integrated genetic tests that can be used to predict, prevent and diagnose complex diseases and tailor personalized treatments for individual patients. Mous stressed that the tests are complex, because genetic susceptibility is only one factor in diseases and environmental factors also play a part. For that reason, the tests cannot be carried out in hospitals but have to be conducted in reference laboratories, or what IntegraGen calls Expert Centers.

The company plans to set up a network of Expert Centers, which will include expert analysis and genetic counseling from an accredited geneticist. The first of them was created in Bonn, Germany, earlier this year and provides a testing service in mature onset diabetes of the young.

IntegraGen now is finalizing a genetic test for autism, which it plans to launch onto the market in 2006. Last May the company disclosed that it was using DNA samples provided by the French Autism Foundation to validate the product. Mous said the autism test would be launched in the U.S. first. IntegraGen is looking for an American partner to handle the sales and marketing of the product there, which would mean setting up one or more Expert Centers. The product would be launched in Europe six to eight months later, he added.

IntegraGen also expects to launch a genetic test for late onset Type II diabetes in 2008 and has several other tests under development for neurological disorders (bi-polar disease, as well as autism) and metabolic disorders (obesity and Type II diabetes mellitus). In addition, the company is collaborating with the Sanofi-Aventis Group, of Paris, to discover genes associated with schizophrenia.

Mous said IntegraGen plans to out-license any disease-related genes it discovers in the process of its genome scanning activities that it deems to be potential drug targets. In March 2003 the company announced the discovery of a druggable target in obesity, having taken less than a year to complete the gene mapping and target identification work. Mous said the company is in discussions with two companies interested in licensing that target and five or six others in obesity.