Clarapath closed a $36 million Series B-1 funding run led by Northwell Ventures, celebrating the addition of new investors CU Healthcare Innovation Fund, Mayo Clinic, and Ochsner Ventures, and bringing Clarapath's total funding to $75 million.
White Plains, NY-based Clarapath will use the money to support commercialization of its pathology laboratory automated tissue processing platform, SectionStar, according to a news release. Clarapath said the device essentially creates an "automated microtomy system," taking paraffin tissue blocks as inputs and creating glass slides as outputs.
"As labs adopt digital pathology downstream, automation in prior steps is crucial to establish consistent results and provide best-in-class samples for diagnostic review," stated Clarapath CEO Eric Feinstein in the announcement.
Of note from Clarapath in April, the company began working with Mayo Clinic on SectionStar. The machine combines automated tissue sectioning, transfer, and a quality control system with robotics, computational artificial intelligence (AI), and integrated histopathology workflows.
Ultimately, SectionStar aims to significantly accelerate sample processing and reduce human involvement and errors. In addition, Mayo Clinic and Clarapath plan to develop new solutions to further improve the histopathology laboratory.
"Together, we are building the foundation for a 'lab of the future' that incorporates end-to-end automation, robotics, and AI to the patient tissue lifecycle," said Dr. Joaquin Garcia, chair of the Division of Anatomic Pathology within Mayo Clinic's Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology and chair of Mayo Clinic's Digital Pathology Program.
The announcements come a little more than one year after Clarapath's acquisition of Crosscope for its advanced workflow and computational pathology tools.
