HAWK Biosystems raises €3.5M to take its cancer diagnostic to the clinic
What's the deal? HAWK BiosystemsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Basque biotech specialising in precision cancer diagnostics, has raised €3.5 million in a round led by InvereadyDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The EIC Fund, the Basque Fund (part of the regional government's SPRI GroupDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →), and other investors joined the deal.
What does it do? Based at the Technology Park of Bizkaia, HAWK's QF-Pro platform measures whether key proteins actually interact inside tumour cells — not just whether they are present. One use is predicting which cancer patients will respond to immunotherapy by measuring the PD-1 and PD-L1 interaction.
Why now? The company launched its first products in 2025 and expects to close 2026 with revenue of about €1 million — double its first commercial year. The round takes total funding since its founding to roughly €12.5 million.
What's the endgame? The money funds three goals: growing its pharmaceutical business, expanding across the EU and US, and preparing the jump to the clinic. HAWK aims to secure CE marking under the EU's new in vitro diagnostics regulation in the second quarter of 2027 and launch its first clinical test that year.
The firm already distributes in more than 30 countries, with clients in Japan, the US, Canada, and the Netherlands, and recent partners added in Spain, Australia, and China. It also works with pharmaceutical multinationals on companion diagnostics for new cancer drugs — the line it calls its most strategic.
What could go wrong? Moving from a research platform to a validated clinical diagnostic is costly, and the funding alone does not guarantee HAWK clears the regulatory and clinical milestones it is targeting for 2027.
The signal: HAWK is betting that functional protein measurement can outperform standard tests in guiding immunotherapy — a crowded space that includes firms such as Akoya Biosciences and Sweden's Navinci. The round marks its attempt to shift from tool supplier to clinical diagnostics company.
Read more: webcapitalriesgo.com
Image credit: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
