Precision Therapeutics plans to launch new genomics product next year

Fresh off a $34 million Series D fundraise, Precision Therapeutics Inc. is planning to launch a “genomics” product sometime in 2011.

CEO Sean McDonald offered few details beyond that, however. “All of our technology is geared toward helping patients and doctors understand which treatments are likely to be most effective based on [the cancer patient's] genetics and the tumor’s characteristics” and the new product will be no different in that respect, McDonald said. Genomics refers to the study of the entire set of DNA instructions that makes up an organism.

The company currently has one product on the market, a test called ChemoFX, which registered $23 million in sales last year, nearly triple the prior year. Precision Therapeutics hopes to capitalize on the growing personalized medicine trend that advocates say will help cut health costs and boost the effectiveness of treatments by ruling out drugs that are shown not to help certain patients.

McDonald admitted that the company’s latest fundraise was essentially a Plan C after Precision Therapeutics first scrapped IPO then merger plans in recent years, blaming the weak economy in each instance. “Our business has continued to do well. The public markets have not continued to do well,” said McDonald.

“We believe this is the preferred scenario to grow our business going forward,” he said, noting that the company isn’t worried about an exit for the time being.

The latest commitment brings the funding that the company has raised since its 1995 inception to more than $100 million, McDonald said. Last year, Precision Therapeutics was named the 64th fastest-growing privately held healthcare company in the U.S. by Inc. Magazine.