Co-investment in VOC Diagnostics
LiU Invest invests SEK 400k in VOC Diagnostics, which has developed an electronic nose that can smell blood samples to detect ovarian cancer early. The investment is a joint investment with ALMI, Stoaf and the university holding companies at Gothenburg University, Stockholm University and Uppsala University.
The company has its roots in Gothenburg, is registered in Stockholm and will now establish the main operations in Linköping to gain access to the expertise in sensors and electronic noses that is available at Linköping University. The investment is a co-investment between private business angels and several public actors and also several members of the team are participating with money in this round.
"That the team members choose to invest their own money is a strength, it shows that they believe in the company and the technology" says Jonas Nilsson, Investment Manager at LiU Invest. "And that our colleagues in Gothenburg, Stockholm and Uppsala also invest together with us, ALMI and Stockholm's business angels is also a strength."
The idea originally comes from György Horvath, professor of gynecological oncology, who trained his dogs to sniff out ovarian cancer. The company has since developed an electronic nose that, together with advanced algorithms, will be able to do the dog's job by "smelling" blood samples. Initial clinical tests have shown very good results after further development of the algorithms. The next step is to improve the prototype and conduct larger clinical studies.
The end goal is to be able to screen for ovarian cancer in a simple and cheap way and by detecting it early save many lives. If ovarian cancer is detected early, the survival rate is 90% after five years, which should be compared to only 4% if the cancer is detected in the last stage, which is unfortunately quite common.