Immunicon

About:

Cell-based research and diagnostic products.

Website: http://www.immunicon.com

Top Investors: Canaan Partners, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, TL Ventures, Burrill & Company, Wheatley Partners

Description:

They are developing and commercializing proprietary cell-based research and diagnostic products with an initial focus on cancer. They believe that their current and future products can provide significant clinical benefits by giving physicians better information to understand, diagnose, treat and monitor cancer. They design their products to provide physicians and scientists with clinically meaningful information earlier than current diagnostic methods. Their technologies, which they brand as CellTracks, can identify, count and characterize the presence and quantity of a small number of tumor cells present in a blood sample. Their collaborator, Veridex, LLC, or Veridex, a Johnson & Johnson company, submitted a pre-market notification, or 510(k), to the US Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, in May 2003 for use of the CellSearch Epithelial Cell Kit in the management of metastatic breast cancer. They expect that the CellSearch Epithelial Cell Kit will be the initial product launched by Veridex based on their technologies. They believe that their products and underlying technology platforms have other applications in cancer diagnostics, in the development of cancer drugs and in cancer research. In addition, they believe that their proprietary technologies may have applications in other fields of medicine, such as cardiovascular and infectious diseases.