A LIFE sciences company has raised £1.5m of external funding for further expansion of its diagnostics work.

Newcastle-based Nonlinear Group secured the funding from a syndicate of private angel investors.

The company, a world-leading business involved in the scientific field of proteomics, supplies most of the world’s leading research organisations and pharmaceutical companies with software tools to aid research and development into new treatments for disease.

The group’s newer spin-out business, Biosignatures, has a particular focus on cancer diagnostics and also assisting companies to develop personalised medicine products.

The group sees this younger business as a burgeoning alternative to the “one size fits all” model of drug development which enables the provision of drugs specific to the needs of individual patients or patient groups.

The firm’s molecular diagnostics products are all targeted at areas of strong clinical need, initially prostate, renal and bladder cancer.

Will Dracup, who founded Nonlinear in 1989 and has been a leading player in proteomics and related software for the last two decades says Biosignatures represents a major growth opportunity for the group.