Nidhi Saxena founded Karmic Lifesciences raises 2nd round funding
Printer Print Email Email
Bangalore: Nidhi Saxena founded Karmic Lifesciences, a Mumbai-based contract research organisation (CRO), has raised its second round of undisclosed investment from Basil Global, a Mauritius based venture capital firm. The company plans to use the proceeds of the fund raising towards expanding sales in the U.S. and European markets and setting up a world-class clinical trial and data management delivery center in an SEZ unit in Mumbai. This round of funding follows the first round of $0.5 million funding into the company by Indian Angel Network. The investments in the company have been made for a minority stake. Saxena who is also the CEO of Karmic Lifesciences, said, "The Basil investment comes at the right time and should give us wings to fly. It re-iterates the huge potential of the Indian Lifesciences industry and puts us in good stead as we prepare for aggressive growth and global traction. Also, the first-hand entrepreneurial experience and professional calibre of the Basil Team including Rajeev and Sanjiv will be a valuable source of learning for us." Founded in 2006, Karmic Lifesciences is a one of the certified and full-service contract research organizations which provides end-to-end ICH-GCP compliant clinical services including clinical trial management, clinical data management, medical writing, biostatistics and regulatory submissions/approvals and has experience of handling 50+ Phase II-IV clinical studies in multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, neurology, cardiovascular, metabolic disorders and immunology. The firm plans to expand sales in the U.S., Europe and to set up clinical trial and data management delivery centre. The company has already hired a few senior professionals including Dr. Shreekant Sapatnekar, ex Director of the prestigious Haffkine Institute and Dr. MV Nagendran, MD Cardiology with 18 years of clinical trial experience and has won a few key US-FDA contracts in Q4, FY '2009-10. Sanjiv Maheshwari, a member of the Investment Committee at Basil Partners who now sits on Karmic's board, said, "We are excited about our investment in Karmic and have chosen it as one of our portfolio companies based on traits we normally look for a sound and high quality management team, a niche focus in the emerging, high growth lifesciences industry and a profitable business model."