Stockholm, March 11, 2020: The Swedish Medtech start-up, Capitainer, today announced that it has closed a share issue of SEK15 million to commercialise its new dried blood spot sampling solution, Capitainer qDBS. Lead investors are Nordic Consumer Health and the US-based Wolf Family Trust, joined by a consortium of Nordic angel investors and Capitainer management.
The Capitainer qDBS solution is designed to enable convenient and quantitative blood sampling at the fingertip. The patented solution ensures an exact sample volume of 10µl blood to be collected. Patients simply place a blood drop on the qDBS card which automatically fills a microchannel with the required amount and discards any excess. The potential for human error is thus completely eliminated. Subsequently, the blood volume contained in the microchannel automatically transfers to a pre-punched DBS paper, forming an accurate and high-quality dried blood spot sample, preserved for quantitative analysis. The filled card can then be safely transported to the laboratory for analysis without the need for refrigeration or specialised packaging. Capitainer blood sampling therefore delivers cost savings, improved healthcare efficiency and patient experience, as well as reducing environmental impact.
“The dried blood spot collection card market size is currently expected to reach USD 337.3 million by 2026, expanding at a CAGR of 3.5%. However, with our next generation device, Capitainer qDBS with quantitative and easy to use sampling, we will not only expand the existing market, but also be able to enter the clinical home sampling market which we believe is a billion dollar USD market. We aim at making Capitainer products the new gold standard for home sampling of blood. As a founding investor, we are delighted to lead this round and look forward to a successful commercialisation,” says Mats Bergryd, CEO of Nordic Consumer Health.
“From wellness screening to serological diagnostics of infectious- and autoimmune diseases, the potential for Capitainer qDBS to further increase its already positive impact on healthcare provision and outcomes is enormous and we are delighted to invest in this round,” adds Bob Wolf, Founder and President of Specialty Diagnostix.
Christopher Aulin, CEO of Capitainer comments: “Over the last 12 months, we have seen a growing interest in Capitainer qDBS for both existing and new applications such as therapeutic drug monitoring, genomics and screening applications. With the fast growing demands for home sampling, we strongly believe that capillary blood will increasingly be seen as a viable and preferable alternative to venous blood. I would like to thank our investors, both new and existing, for their confidence and this funding will now enable us to accelerate our commercialisation activities for Capitainer qDBS.”
For more information, visit www.capitainer.se
Contact
Christopher Aulin, CEO t: +46 708 977 577
e: aulin@capitainer.se
Notes
Capitainer AB is a Swedish Medtech company founded in 2013 by Professor Olof Beck from the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at the Karolinska Institute and Professors Göran Stemme, Asso. Prof. Niclas Roxhed and PhD Gabriel Lenk from the division of Micro- and Nanosystems at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Sweden and Peter Bräutigam, a business consultant.
Capitainer is a supplier of intelligent solutions for Dried Blood and Plasma Spot sampling serving several market segments, including but not limited, to Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, Drug Development and Drugs of Abuse and Alcohol testing. By using a combination of paper- and polymer microfluidics the precision and accuracy of metering of capillary blood is on par with that of a standard displacement pipette. Thus, the technology enables more convenient solutions for healthcare sampling and patients’ home sampling ensuring more reliable test results for healthcare and other providers of tests based on blood or plasma.
