December 4, 2024

By Gerelyn Terzo, Global AgInvesting Media

Biotangents, an Edinburgh, Scotland-based biotech startup, has raised £2.3 million (US$2.9 million) in a Series A round. The proceeds will be directed toward bolstering the scale of its on-farm diagnostic device designed to identify disease in dairy cows. Led by St Andrews-based Eos Advisory and British Business Investments, the round also extended to returning investors Kelvin Capital and Scottish Enterprise. The company, which suspects its technology will revolutionize the global dairy farming industry, plans to begin on-farm trials of its tech solution across the U.K. and internationally in 2025.

Biotangents Chief Commercial Officer (COO) Ross McDermid shared some further details with GAI News, noting that the fundraising brings the company to a revenue generation position. He added that Biotangents has raised investment previously, most notably in 2017 and 2022, with the latest round buoying its fundraising tally to £7.1 million ($9 million.)

Of the fundraising round, McDermid told GAI News, “It will allow us to bring our product to market, which will initially comprise a pilot phase with farms in the U.K. and in selected international markets.”

Biotangents developed its technology solution in response to prolonged response times in existing diagnostics for cow disease causing farmers to treat their herds in other ways. More often than not, farmers turn to antibiotics, which according to Biotangents is unnecessary 40 percent of the time. In response, this raises the cow herd’s anti-microbial resistance, lowering their life expectancy and increasing milk wastage while causing negative environmental impacts and higher costs. The Biotangents solution sets out to solve this issue, offering a quick, on-farm point-of-care diagnostic care to fight cow diseases such as bovine mastitis.

“Our device uses a mix of our own bioinformatics and sample preparation know how with molecular technology to analyze the sample. We added simplicity to the design and user experience so that the farmer has an easy-to-use, highly accurate, cost-effective and rapid platform to detect mastitis pathogens, and, in the future, other infectious diseases,” McDermid told us.

Bovine mastitis can be fatal in cows and comes with a hefty price tag to the global dairy industry of approximately £20 billion each year. Biotangents shared that antimicrobial resistance remains one of the leading threats to human and animal health, saying that “technology aids correct use of antibiotics.” The company’s two flagship products are currently available in the market — AmpliSpec LAB Mastitis for the rapid identification of bovine mastitis pathogens and AmpliSpec LAB BVDV Laboratory assay for the detection of Bovine Viral Diarrhoea virus (BVDV-1 & 2) in cattle.

Biotangents CEO Fiona Marshall stated, “Biotangents is on the cusp of full market launch with a technology that leads to better herd health, much improved productivity, and significantly higher levels of sustainability.”

Biotangents CCO Ross McDermid said, “This investment endorses our game-changing technology, and means we can now seize the huge market opportunity to support farmers, vets and the wider dairy industry.”

Biotangents also welcomed senior agritech adviser Nicky Deasy from Eos Advisory to its board of directors.

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