Barcelona June 28, 2012 –Ysios Capital, a leading Spanish life sciences venture capital firm, today announces that it has led the €2 million Series A financing of Inbiomotion SL, a spin-out company from the Growth Control and Cancer Metastasis group at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) and ICREA focused on the development of biomarkers for the prediction of bone metastasis from primary tumor biopsies. Additional investors participating in the round include Fundació Vila Casas and JVRisk Technologies.

The proceeds of the financing will be used to continue the validation of its proprietary biomarker in a number of clinical studies and advance its development with the aim of filing for regulatory approval.

At present, there is a lack of diagnostic tools that specifically predict bone metastasis in early stage cancer patients. Inbiomotion’s biomarker represents a further step beyond clinical standards, fostering patient stratification according to bone metastasis risk/probability. Its proprietary single biomarker codes for a nuclear protein and is able to predict which patients will relapse to the bone. It has been validated with over 900 patient samples in two independent cohorts with two independent techniques (gene expression and IHC), resulting in negative predictive value of around 95%. Using established immunohistochemistry assays, the biomarker has the potential to be used in any histopathology laboratory and in a FISH detection setting.

Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Roger Gomis founder of Inbiomotion and ICREA Researcher at the IRB Barcelona, said: “This financing event marks a significant milestone in the evolution of Inbiomotion as a product-focused molecular diagnostics company. Having engaged a renowned investor such as Ysios Capital, Inbiomotion is now in the position to deliver on its strategy of developing diagnostic tools that will hopefully lead to a change in the clinical standard of care with the goal of improving cancer patients prognosis and clinical management”.

 About Ysios Capital

Ysios Capital is an independent venture capital firm providing private equity financing to early and mid-stage human healthcare and biotechnology companies with special focus on pharmaceuticals, diagnostics and medical devices. Ysios launched its first fund, Ysios BioFund I, of 69 million Euros in 2008. The investment in Inbiomotion is the 9th investment of Ysios Capital. Ysios’ investments to date include: Inbiomotion (Barcelona, Spain), MedLumics (Madrid, Spain), AM-Pharma BV (Bunnik, The Netherlands), STAT Diagnostica (Barcelona, Spain), Sabirmedical (Barcelona, Spain), Cardoz (Stockholm, Sweden), Endosense (Geneva), Biovex (now Amgen, Boston) and Cellerix (Madrid, now Tigenix NV NYSE Alternext:TIG).

About IRB Barcelona

Founded in 2005 by the Government of Catalonia and the University of Barcelona, the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) is one of eight centres in Spain to be recognised by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness as a “Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence”. The 28 groups hosted by the institute are devoted to basic and applied research at the interface between molecular and cellular biology, structural and computational biology, and chemistry, with experts in proteomics, genomics, biostatistics, and advanced digital microscopy. The research at IRB Barcelona is organised into five programmes, which work together with the common goal of conducting multidisciplinary projects that address important biomedical problems affecting our society, with special emphasis on cancer and metastasis. The institute is home to approximately 470 employees from 37 countries. IRB Barcelona’s ultimate objective is to translate research results to the clinic and has already established three biotechnology spin-off companies to this end. The institute is located in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), in the Diagonal Campus of the University of Barcelona. Director: Dr. Joan J. Guinovart. Adjunct director: Dr. Joan Massagué.

About ICREA

ICREA, Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies, is a foundation supported by the Catalan Government and guided by a Board of Trustees. ICREA was created in response to the need to seek new hiring formulas that would make it possible to compete with other research systems on a similar if not an equal footing. ICREA’s aim is to recruit top scientists for the Catalan R&D system, scientists capable of leading new research groups, strengthening existing groups, and setting up new lines of research. ICREA is an institution without walls. To achieve its objectives it works closely with Catalan universities and research centres based in Catalonia by means of long-term agreements that allow ICREA researchers to integrate in research groups within these universities and centres. ICREA plans to keep offering new research positions each year and to continue helping increase research in Catalonia. Cooperation, international openness and excellence are ICREA’s hallmark. To this date, in its eleven years of activity, ICREA has hired a total of 278 researchers in different areas of research: 30% in life and medical sciences, 27% in experimental sciences and mathematics, 12% in social sciences, 15% in humanities and 16% in technology.

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