iSpecimen Closes $8 Million in Financing

LEXINGTON, Mass., Sept. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- iSpecimen®, a provider of on-demand human biospecimens to the life science community, announced today that it has secured $8 million in capital in its Series B Financing. New investor OneBlood™, Inc., through a wholly owned subsidiary, in conjunction with existing investors, will help grow iSpecimen's healthcare partner network and scale operations to meet the ever increasing needs of its research customers for annotated human biospecimens.

iSpecimen brings together sophisticated technology and professional service solutions to meet the needs of today's medical research community. The company provides customized specimen collections, along with rich clinical data, to help researchers increase the speed of bringing new drugs and diagnostics to market.

Every year, life scientists spend billions of dollars procuring millions of human specimens for their research programs. Typically, this involves procuring specimens along with limited clinical data from biobanks or sponsoring research to gain access to specific patients and their clinical history but at considerable time and expense. iSpecimen simplifies the process of finding the right specimens from specific patient populations by partnering with healthcare providers, gaining access to their laboratory specimens and patient-level data, and matching these against research needs.

Using its own novel technology that searches de-identified medical records for precise patient characteristics and their associated specimens, iSpecimen instructs healthcare partners to pick and ship these specimens to its research customers instead of discarding them as is typically done after clinical testing has been completed. 

"This is an incredibly exciting time in the evolution of iSpecimen.  Since raising our first round of financing we've expanded our partner network to include dozens of healthcare facilities, implemented our technology and proven that it can match researchers' needs to available specimens," said Christopher Ianelli, MD, PhD, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of iSpecimen.  "We have introduced the idea of using technology to connect researchers to specific patients and their specimens and are thrilled that OneBlood, along with our existing investors, believes in iSpecimen's vision.  We look forward to their invaluable strategic guidance as we expand our operations to provide specimens to even more researchers worldwide," said Ianelli.

"The synergies between OneBlood and iSpecimen are plentiful. Both organizations are developing cutting-edge advances in medical science and opening the door to innovative clinical research. These realities make the partnership between the two organizations a natural one," said Bud Scholl, Chief Strategy and Integration Officer for OneBlood. "By being proactive and investing in new and emerging technologies and platforms of service today, we enhance our ability to further develop avenues that provide additional cost savings to our hospital partners and their patients," said Scholl.

Founded in 2009, iSpecimen is a pioneer in the use of technology to search electronic health records along with laboratory information systems to find specific patients and specimens in order to repurpose them into research. The company currently provides access to millions of patients and their discarded specimens yearly to its customers in industry, government and academia.

About OneBlood

OneBlood is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) community asset responsible for providing safe, available and affordable blood to more than 200 hospital partners and their patients throughout most of Florida and into parts of South Georgia and Alabama.

OneBlood was established on January 27, 2012 when three of Florida's independent, not-for-profit blood centers merged. Together, OneBlood brings more than 100 years of lifesaving experience to the community. OneBlood collects nearly one million units of blood annually, employs approximately 2,000 people, operates more than 70 donor centers and deploys nearly 200 of its signature Big Red Buses throughout its service area for blood drives.  To learn more about OneBlood, please visit www.oneblood.org.

About iSpecimen

iSpecimen, a privately held company, provides life scientists with a rich source of high-quality human biospecimens for their research and development programs. The company's pioneering technology allows it to search through millions of patient specimens flowing through its partner network of healthcare facilities each year to find biospecimens based on associated laboratory and medical record data. These samples, most of which would otherwise be discarded after clinical testing, exactly match patient cohort criteria and provide a steady supply of richly-annotated human biospecimens for a variety of basic and translational research. For more information about iSpecimen, please visit www.ispecimen.com.

SOURCE iSpecimen