The company has developed SectionStar as a fully automated robotic system to improve the efficiency of the pathology laboratories

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Clarapath’s first robotic instrument SectionStar. (Credit: Clarapath, Inc.)

US-based medical robotics company Clarapath has raised additional $16m in follow-on financing, extending its Series B round that was previously closed at $16m.

Investors including The 4100 Group, East Post Road Ventures, Epiphron Capital, Northwell Ventures, P5 Health Ventures, and others participated in the funding round.

The extended Series B financing round brings Clarapath’s total investment to over $39m.

Clarapath CEO Eric Feinstein said: “Being a manual process, AI-driven algorithms for interpretation of human tissues – particularly cancer – when examined on a cellular level are vulnerable to the variability in the quality of those tissue cross sections.

“Clarapath’s SectionStar consolidates many manual cutting, quality control, and decision making steps into one piece of equipment, resulting in better quality tissue sections, faster processing efficiencies, and lower overall costs.”

“This funding will help further develop SectionStar with the goal of launching in the non-clinical market in the very near future, and targeting the large clinical market as our ultimate goal.

“The current funding will help us continue building our team, as well as supporting a robust sales and service effort for our customers.”

Clarapath is a medical robotics company focused on improving the way pathology labs process the human and animal tissues through automation.

It has developed SectionStar, a fully automated robotic system designed to improve the efficiency of the pathology laboratories.

According to the company, standardisation in the quality of tissue sections is important for molecular mapping of human disease and creation of new treatment pathways.

SectionStar is designed to address an unmet need for producing rapid and accurate diagnosis, said the company.

It is also said to support the research and development of pharmaceuticals, within the non-clinical setting.

Clarapath founder Partha Mitra said: “Conventional tissue processing based on 2D sections lacks 3D context. The undistorted, consecutive sections cut by the robotic device allows overlaying molecular and genomic markers.

“These data sets combined with advanced computational analyses can transform nonclinical research in diagnosing and developing therapies for cancer and other challenging diseases.”

Headquartered in Hawthorne, New York, Clarapath also has a CLIA-certified Clinical Research Organization (CRO) that provides tissue processing, whole slide imaging, and automated image processing.