Dash Bio raises $30 million to automate laboratory testing for drug developers

Dash Bio raises $30 million to automate laboratory testing for drug developers

On August 3, Dash Bio announced a $30 million Series A round led by Oak HC/FT. The company will use the funding to expand its laboratory, assay portfolio, commercial team, and proprietary software. It has now raised $47.5 million in total.

Finding a promising molecule is only one step in developing a drug. The team tests the molecule in cells or animals, collects blood and tissue samples, and uses the resulting measurements to choose the next dose or analytical method, or to decide whether to end the program. While the laboratory processes the samples, the next experiment must wait for the results.

This work is called bioanalysis: the laboratory converts a sample into data about a substance or biomarker. Some assays measure proteins, while others measure DNA and RNA fragments or drug concentrations. A result is useful only when the developer can link it to a specific sample, procedure, and experimental timepoint.

Dash Bio is building a laboratory that follows GLP requirements, which require a record of every stage of a study. The company says that robots perform some repetitive operations and that its system maintains a digital history for each sample. According to the company, preclinical results are available within days, and it signed contracts with more than 30 customers in nine months.

Bioanalysis sets the pace of the development cycle: a hypothesis defines an experiment, the experiment produces data, and the data shape the next hypothesis. The sooner a team receives its measurements, the more meaningful options it can test in a year.

Dash Bio's funding round supports this transition from a biological experiment to the next decision. The company is expanding its standardized assays and laboratory capacity so that samples can return to developers more quickly as usable data.