Pleno Secures $25 Million in Series B Funding and Appoints Dr. Vik Vaz as CEO to Drive Commercial Growth and Revolutionize Multi-omics Diagnostics
Pleno, a clinical and multi-omics diagnostics company based in San Diego, has recently secured $25 million in Series B funding. This significant investment was led by major investors including Deerfield Management, Foresite Capital, and Medical Excellence Capital, among others. The funding is aimed at supporting the company’s next phase of growth as it prepares to scale its commercial operations.
In conjunction with the funding announcement, Pleno also revealed the appointment of Dr. Vik Vaz, M.D., as its new Chief Executive Officer and President. Dr. Vaz will serve on the company’s Board of Directors, effective immediately. He brings a dynamic combination of clinical expertise, strategic insight, and commercial experience in the life sciences and medical technology sectors. His leadership is expected to drive Pleno’s commercial growth and help the company achieve its ambitious goals.
Pleno is known for its innovative RAPTOR multi-omic instrument platform, which is designed to revolutionize biological target detection and enable a broad array of life science applications. The company’s proprietary Hypercoding technology simplifies complex multi-omic known-target detection, making it accessible and affordable to a wider range of users. This technology enables unprecedented improvements in performance, cost, and scale, positioning Pleno as a leader in the diagnostics industry.
The RAPTOR platform is slated for early customer access in 2023 and full availability in 2024. It is expected to deliver ultra-high target multiplexing combined with high dynamic range and very low limit of detection (LoD), while still being able to process anywhere from 8 to 384 samples per run. Instrument run-times will range between 1 to 3 hours, depending on the level of target multiplexing, dynamic range, and LoD required by each customer’s assay and application.
Key investors have expressed their commitment to supporting Pleno’s growth strategy. Deerfield Management and Foresite Capital, who also participated in Pleno’s $40 million Series A funding round in October 2022, have reaffirmed their belief in the company’s potential to disrupt existing sequencing and multi-omic approaches critical for drug development and clinical diagnostics.
Dr. Vaz, the new CEO, has a proven track record of leadership in the life sciences industry. He most recently served as head of strategy and market intelligence and a leader of the companion diagnostics business at Illumina. His responsibilities included leading enterprise-wide strategic planning and portfolio investment, along with key strategic transactions and partnerships, new market development strategy, and companion diagnostics revenue generation.
Pleno’s Board of Directors has welcomed Dr. Vaz, emphasizing his deep industry understanding and ability to translate strategy into exceptional execution. The company is poised to bring a transformational new technology to market that will improve patient care and drive advances in biological understanding. The data generated by Pleno’s technology is expected to have a significant impact across oncology, infectious disease, and many other clinical applications.
With this new funding and leadership, Pleno is well-positioned to accelerate the development of its groundbreaking instrument platform and scale its commercial operations. The company’s innovative approach to multi-omics diagnostics is set to make a significant impact in the life sciences industry, improving the accessibility and affordability of critical technologies for patients worldwide.