BioFluidica pumps $4.1M funding to back its research for cancer diagnosis development

BioFluidica, a Chapel Hill company developing a product using liquid biopsies for cancer detection, has raised $4.1 million in a private equity offering.

The company, founded in 2007 by Steven Soper, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and biomedical engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is developing instruments to isolate and analyze tumor cells and biomarkers circulating in the bloodstream. It's another in the growing array of precision health companies transforming North Carolina's fast-growing life science scene.

The North Carolina Biotechnology Center awarded BioFluidica a $250,000 Small Business Research Loan in 2015. The company has several employees in Chapel Hill and has job openings posted on its website for more at its R&D facility in San Diego.

BioFluidica CEO Rolf Muller, Ph.D., made the venture investments public in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company also reported completion of a $2 million Series A funding round in 2016.

Muller joined BioFluidica in January 2016, succeeding Soper as CEO. Soper remains the company's chief technology officer and is also director of UNC's Center for BioModular Multi-scale Systems for Precision Medicine, focused on developing new tools for the molecular analysis of circulating biomarkers.

Before joining BioFluidica, Muller was a co-founder and president of Biomatrica, which he developed from an idea to be a global leader in biopreservation technologies for diagnostic and health care companies. He obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Pasteur Institute in Paris.

BioFluidica is developing innovative technologies for the isolation and analysis of rare, circulating biomarkers in the blood. The company's first platform has the capacity to isolate circulating tumor cells and other key particles from patients' blood with unprecedented recovery and purity. The technology is based on patented microfluidics designs and has been clinically validated for six different cancer types including colorectal cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, multiple myeloma and acute myeloid leukemia.