Intelligent Fingerprinting, a British company developing the world’s first handheld fingerprint-based drug screening device, has secured £750,000 in funding from a consortium of private US-based investors.
The funding boost will support the final stages of developing the company’s non-invasive drug screening technology, which uses the unique Intelligent FingerprintingTM analysis technique to screen for multiple drugs of abuse and deliver results in less than 10 minutes.
Today’s announcement follows an earlier £2 million investment from US backers in 2012. In the past 15 months, Intelligent Fingerprinting has also secured almost £700,000 in government-funded grants.
Dr Jerry Walker, CEO of Intelligent Fingerprinting, said the latest funding comes at an exciting stage as the product nears commercial launch.
“This additional funding is fantastic news as we enter the final phases of development. Allowing us to accelerate the device’s introduction to the global market, the investment will be used as working capital to fund late-stage product development and to support investment in manufacturing,” Dr Walker explained.
“The ongoing support from investors validates our assertion that we have a technology with massive potential,” he continued.
Non-invasive and easy to use, Intelligent Fingerprinting’s drug screening device eliminates the need for specialised collection arrangements and biohazard disposal facilities associated with conventional drug testing methods involving blood, urine, or saliva samples. The new technology is expected to revolutionise drug testing globally in many sectors, including criminal justice, drug rehabilitation and the workplace.
Dr Walker added: “We’re very encouraged by the continuing financial support from investors here and in the USA. They’re clearly as excited as we are about the immense potential of our ground-breaking technology.”
The global market for drug screening was estimated to reach $2.6 billion in 2014 and to grow at ~5% per year (BCC Research LLC), with the US alone accounting for more than 50% of the global drug testing market.
In 2012, the company granted North American marketing and distribution rights in the criminal justice sector to Texas-based company Smart Start Inc.
The device is expected to go into pilot production in 2014.
About Intelligent Fingerprinting
Intelligent Fingerprinting’s unique fingerprint-based portable Drug Screening System is set to revolutionise the way drug screening is carried out across a range of sectors. The distinctive Intelligent Fingerprinting technology, which works by analysing sweat from a fingerprint sample, enables non-invasive, cost-effective screening for multiple drug groups in under 10 minutes.
Intelligent Fingerprinting has attracted worldwide interest in its technology from a wide range of drug-screening markets, including the criminal justice arena, drug rehabilitation centres, prisons and occupational health services. The technique has potential for many other uses, including healthcare diagnostics and homeland security applications.
The company’s ground-breaking technology detects drug use by analysing chemicals, known as metabolites, contained in the minute traces of sweat found in a fingerprint. (Metabolites are chemicals produced by the body as a result of normal metabolic processes.) The Intelligent Fingerprinting Drug Screening System looks for the presence of specific drugs or drug metabolites in the test subject’s fingerprint sweat sample and, if detected, identifies which drugs have been consumed.
Since 2012, Intelligent Fingerprinting has raised £11.23m in funding from a consortium of private UK- and US-based investors, as well as government funding for pilot studies within the UK’s National Health Service and coroners’ services.
Founded in 2007, Intelligent Fingerprinting is a spin-out company from the University of East Anglia (UEA). The company is based in Cambridge, England and currently employs 26 people.
