Adelaide cancer detection startup Ferronova tops up its long-running Series A with $6 million

Medical startup Ferronova has raised $6 million in a top up of its five-year-old Series A to $17.5 million. 

The fresh funding was led by existing investors Uniseed/UniSuper, South Australian  Venture Capital Fund, Artesian Venture Partners and Renew Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Singapore- based Ultragreen.ai.

The Adelaide biotech,  founded in 2016 a spin-out from the University of South Australia and Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, uses magnetic nanoparticles for better cancer detection during surgery. The Series A began in 2020, with $3.5m led by Uniseed, topped up in January 2023 with another $8m, alongside a $1m Seed round and several millions of dollars in grant funding from the federal and South Australian governments.

Ferronova is pioneering a novel, image-guided surgery tracer to help pre-operatively identify areas where cancer may have metastasised.

Tiny magnetic particles, known as SPIONs (superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles), bind to cells found in lymph nodes, to help identify tissue that could contain cancerous cells. That helps doctors address the problem that cancer cells often aren’t spotted by current imaging and rogue cells may remain undetected in surgery. 

The capital will go towards ongoing clinical trials and commercialisation of the technology.

Ferronova is currently undertaking a 60 patient, two-year trial of the technology in stomach and oesophageal cancers – with 54 patients enrolled to date and completion expected in early 2026. The trial involves leading national research centres including the Olivia Newton John Cancer Centre, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Royal Adelaide Hospital and Flinders Medical Centre. Plans are underway to continue research in the US over the next two years. 

Ferronova CEO Stewart Bartlett said that while surgery remains the only curative treatment for a majority of patients, surgical research scores just 0.1% of global cancer research funding.  

“We all know someone who had surgery to remove lesions only for the cancer to return and how devastating that can be,” he said.

“The challenge is particularly evident in stomach and oesophageal cancer, where recurrence after surgery occurs in over 60% of patients2. Three-year survival can be as low as 41% in stomach cancer and 27% in oesophageal cancer.

“Approximately 1.8 million people are diagnosed with stomach and oesophageal cancer globally each year. Our ambition is to support an increase in curative outcomes through improved surgical guidance.” 

Declan Cassells from Ultragreen.ai, which earlier this month listed on the Singapore Exchange, said interest in “fluorescence-guided surgery” is accelerating globally. 

“Ferronova’s novel approach aligns closely with our focus on fluorescence-guided surgery,” he said. 

“Their tracer technology may offer particular promise in complex cancers where conventional imaging approaches are  limited. We see strong potential in this area of research.”