Centogene Raises $56 Million in IPO for Rare Disease Diagnostics

Photo: Arndt Rolfs, CEO of Centogene

Centogene has raised $56 million in an initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market. The German rare disease diagnostics company offered four million shares at $14 a share and will begin trading under the symbol CNTG.

Centogene bills itself as “The Rare Disease Company” with a mission to transform global genetic data into medical decisions for rare disease diagnosis. Founded in 2006, the company’s platform includes epidemiologic, phenotypic, and genetic data that reflects a global population, and also a biobank of these patients’ blood samples. Its proprietary rare disease platform is based on its real-world data repository with over 2.0 billion weighted data points from more than 450,000 patients representing 115 different countries as of the end of August 2019, an average of over 500 data points per patient.

Centogene believes its genetic testing platform comprehensively analyzes multi-level data to improve the understanding of rare hereditary diseases, which it says can accelerate patients’ diagnostic odyssey and improve its pharmaceutical partners’ ability to bring orphan drugs to the market. As of August 31, 2019, the company collaborated with more than 35 pharmaceutical partners for more than 30 different rare diseases. The company opened its first U.S. laboratory in 2018 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.