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August 12, 2020 Bioscience

Tangen raises $12.2M to manufacture portable COVID test

PHOTO | Contributed Tangen's GeneSpark instrument.
By Natalie Missakian

Branford diagnostics company Tangen Biosciences Inc. said it has closed on a $12.2 million Series B preferred stock financing, beating its fundraising target of $10 million.

Current and new investors participated in the oversubscribed round, including Connecticut Innovations, VC23, Leading Edge Ventures and Parvizi Surgical, the company said. The company previously raised $9 million in a Series A round in June 2019. 

Tangen said it will use the latest money to scale up manufacturing capacity for its portable test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

The company received a $696,000 contract from the federal government to develop the test earlier this year, building on an earlier contract to develop a test for anthrax.

The new funding will also be used to accelerate development work on a new panel test that can detect influenza A and B, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and the COVID-19 virus simultaneously. That test’s release is planned for the flu season this fall.

“Once the type of respiratory disease is identified, patients can experience better clinical outcomes by having target-appropriate treatment,” President and CEO Richard Birkmeyer said in a statement. 

Both tests would be used on the company’s Tangen DX and GeneSpark molecular diagnostic system, a hand-held device that can analyze results outside of a lab setting.

The company also announced the addition of two new board members, Vance Kershner and Alan Levin. 

Kershner is founder, president and CEO of LabWare Inc., which develops and implements software for automating lab operations. 

Levin, a former economic development director for the state of Delaware, was president and CEO of Happy Harry’s, the tenth largest drugstore chain in the U.S. before its merger with the Walgreen Company in July 2006, Tangen said. 

The seven-year-old company expanded to a bigger space at 20 Commercial St. last summer. It now has 32 employees, according to New Haven Biz’s 2020 Book of Lists.

Contact Natalie Missakian at news@newhavenbiz.com

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