An investment into life: we start a crowdfunding campaign via the platform Seedmatch – with prominent support!

Those who have once been suspected to suffer from a severe disease know all-too-well, how long and grueling it can be to wait for further examinations that might bring clarity. These days, weeks and months are often very stressful for the person affected – and seemingly endless.
In the course of cervical cancer screening, an abnormal Pap smear or a positive test result for human Papillomaviruses (the viruses causing the cancer) should not directly lead to a surgical treatment, a so-called conisation: in fact, many of the cervical tissue changes observed by these tests, which appear like precancerous lesions, may heal by themselves. Many of these surgeries are, however, performed often too fast and unnecessary, since they are based on such results, without a clear diagnostic proof for the malignancy of the lesion.

It is therefore even more important that gynaecologists and patients can rely on tests which yield fast and accurate results, so hasty interventions or wrong therapies are avoided. With GynTect oncgnostics has developed a test that exactly meets these requirements. With GynTect, patients with an abnormal finding receive a fast and reliable proof, if tissue lesions at the Cervix uteri may progress to cancer and thus require treatment.

With the crowd-investing campaign starting today on seedmatch.de/oncgnostics we intend to raise capital for finalizing the development of an advanced GynTect, with which we want to avoid unnecessary surgeries as well as further follow-up tests, distress and uncertainty for women. In this connection we also want to proceed with distribution and internationalization of the test, in order to make it accessible for further markets.

Why crowd-investing?

In contrast to our first financing rounds in 2012 and 2014, which allowed the founding of oncgnostics as well as the full development of GynTect with its CE mark, establishment of its production and the first steps in marketing, we choose a different financing option. We deliberately opted for a crowd-investing campaign, since with this option small investors will have the opportunity to make a big investment into health and life – and thus help many patients. GynTect is not an every-day gadget, but a molecular diagnostic test which allows early detection and thus early treatment of cancer.

Seedmatch is the suitable platform for this task: as of August 4th, 2016, everybody who wants to support our work, may become part of our “crowd” as an investor. With a minimum investment of 250 € participation in the success of our product GynTect and our company is possible. Depending upon the progress of our company and our product portfolio, investors may have the chance for an attractive yield. The campaign runs for 60 days and allows insight into our investment story and our business plan for potential investors interested in our concept. You find the campaign here: seedmatch.de/oncgnostics

What makes our crowd-investing campaign so exceptional?

Crowd-investing has become an attractive financing option. Many companies in start-up or even later phase use this option in order to be able to realize new ideas or products. Our campaign has some peculiarities. Firstly, our current investor bm|t Beteiligungsmanagement Thüringen GmbH, intends to co-invest and to double each Euro invested by the crowd, through its Startup Funds. Thus, an investment of 250 € by a crowd investor means a total of 500 € for oncgnostics.

“We invest into oncgnostics again, because we believe in the team, the technology, as well as the very good market opportunities of GynTect”, Udo Werner, CEO of bm|t points out. Secondly we are proud that we get prominent support! Andrea Henkel, former Olympics and multiple world champion in biathlon is brand ambassador for GynTect. She supports us in raising awareness of GynTect and in promoting medical information concerning cervical cancer, screening, and the examination methods used in screening and triage.

“In is of prime importance that women regularly attend their gynaecologist for participating in cancer screening programs. Many of them, however, do not even know what in particular is to be examined and what an abnormal test result means. Therefore, I support oncgnostics during their campaign and their efforts to raise public awareness for the topic cervical cancer and their test GynTect®!”

With annually 530,000 new cases, cervical cancer is still the 3rd most frequent cancer in women worldwide; more that half of the cases still are fatal. Therefore it is even more important that women attend cancer screening. Even women vaccinated against HPV should, despite their higher protection against infection should attend screening, since vaccination only protects against the two out of twelve HPV types that most frequently evoke cervical cancer. A new vaccine, which is available now, protects already against seven of the 12 types – but still does not cause full immunity.

Please find further information on our Seedmatch campaign here: seedmatch.de/oncgnostics

As a result of the risks that are associated, an investment in this form is suitable only for investors who can accept a total loss of invested funds.

Warning: This investment carries considerable risks and may lead to a complete loss of the capital invested.