Novo Holdings leads $50m round for India's MedGenome
Novo Holdings, which manages the wealth of Denmark’s Novo Nordisk Foundation, has led a USD 50m investment in MedGenome, an India-based genetic testing business.
LeapFrog Investments and Sofina also took part in the round. Both are existing investors. Sofina and Sequoia Capital India led a USD 30m round in 2017, and then Sofina re-upped three years later in a LeapFrog-led USD 50m deal. MedGenome’s other backers include Indian private bank HDFC.
Founded in 2013, the company provides advanced genetic testing and bioinformatics solutions to patients, pharmaceutical companies, and research institutions globally. It has a sequencing facility in the US and offers various services that enable biotech companies to accelerate early drug discovery and help them in biomarker discovery for companion diagnostics programmes.
MedGenome’s capabilities are based on its genetic sampling, especially in India and the South Asia region. The company has administered more than 300,000 tests to date, serving over 200,000 patients. It obtains samples from nearly 4,000 hospitals and 10,000 physicians.
The new funding will be used to scale the business beyond India, South Asia, and Southeast Asia into Africa and the Middle East, with a view to democratising access to genetic testing and personal healthcare across emerging markets, according to a statement.
“We have seen global growth, especially in Asia, in the use of bioinformatics and genomics in the diagnosis and treatment of many diseases. This is a growing area that is tightly integrated with overall general healthcare and represents an enormous step forward in the advancement of personalised medicine,” said Navjeewan Khosla, a principal at Novo Holdings.
Novo Nordisk Foundation holds controlling stakes in diabetes care specialist Novo Nordisk and bioinnovation player Novozymes. It has USD 62bn in assets, of which USD 19bn is deployed in financial and life sciences investments. The life sciences portfolio is split into four strategies based on size and maturity, with USD 1bn-USD 2bn in new capital deployed each year.
Novo Holdings established an Asia life sciences investment team in Singapore in 2020, following the recruitment of Amit Kakar as regional head. It has since backed the likes of Indonesia healthcare technology provider Halodoc, Singapore medical equipment manufacturer Esco Lifesciences, and Singapore and US-based Hummingbird Bioscience.
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