Cambridge’s PlaqueTec raises €4.2 million to advance precision medicine for cardiovascular disease

Cambridge-based PlaqueTec, a MedTech company specialising in intracoronary liquid biopsy to identify inflammatory drivers of cardiovascular disease (CVD), has raised €4.2 million ($5 million) in fresh funding. The oversubscribed financing round was funded entirely by the company’s existing investor base. 

Martin Stapleton, Chairperson, PlaqueTec, commented, “The decision by our existing shareholders to reinvest, and to do so at a level that exceeded our target, speaks directly to their confidence in what PlaqueTec’s data is revealing about cardiovascular disease. We are building something genuinely differentiated: a high-resolution, intracoronary data asset that is poised to underpin the next generation of cardiovascular therapeutics. This round validates that strategy and gives us the runway to prove it.”

Founded in 2008, PlaqueTec is pursuing a better understanding of the biological mechanisms of coronary artery disease (CAD) to advance the development of precision medicine.

Atherosclerotic disease causes plaque build-up that narrows or blocks the arteries that supply blood to the heart, brain and limbs, and is a leading cause of death globally.

According to the company, current treatment approaches are largely one-size-fits-all and therefore ineffective for many patients. To address this, PlaqueTec has developed a proprietary technology and data analysis platform to endotype patients and uncover potential biomarkers of coronary vascular function and plaque progression.

The startup claims that a more detailed understanding of patient endotypes will support drug development by identifying new targets in specific patient groups, thereby reducing clinical trial sizes and costs, and increasing success rates, ultimately improving outcomes for patients.

The fresh capital will be used by the company to build out PlaqueTec’s proprietary cardiovascular data lake, BioCarta, a growing repository of unique intracoronary proteomic and clinical data.

PlaqueTec states that the BioCarta database contains proteomic data obtained from patient samples collected in the BIOPATTERN trial using its intracoronary liquid biopsy approach. Using the coronary concentration gradient, the liquid biopsy device samples proteomic biomarkers directly at the site of plaque formation, generating data that cannot be obtained through conventional systemic blood sampling.

The company’s ongoing BIOPATTERN trial is generating proteomic data across a growing patient cohort, with several potential targets identified in sub-groups accounting for the majority of the studied coronary artery disease population. Its data lake strategy positions these findings as a platform asset for partnership and licensing with leading pharmaceutical companies engaged in cardiovascular drug development.

The company is based at the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge, UK. It is actively engaged in discussions with potential pharmaceutical and BioTech partners seeking to leverage its intracoronary insights to inform target selection and patient stratification strategies.

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