The York University spinout provides a range of services to assist in both clinical and pre-clinical development and has pioneered the use of microdosing as a means of testing drugs in humans prior to full clinical trials.
Since receiving its first £2m investment the company has doubled its number of staff and increased its sales by 170 per cent, as well as signing its first £0.5m outsourcing contract.
According to Jeremy Hague, Xceleron's European business development manager, the primary goal of the investment is to fuel the growth of the business with regards to its service and business capabilities.
Commenting on the investment, Professor Colin Garner, Xceleron CEO, said: "We are delighted with the continued support of our existing investors, Close Ventures and Foursome."
"This investment allows us to provide the capacity needed to support our substantial growth in sales. We are also excited by our plans to expand in the key US market."
Microdosing involves using only a tiny amount of active substance to establish the likely pharmacological dose level before any subsequent Phase I trial.
The technique can also be used to weed-out unsuitable drug candidates earlier in the development process, identify the right animal models for pre-clinical testing and aid candidate selection.
A more recent application has been found in the analysis of drug targeting to find out whether a drug can get to where it needs to go. This has found successful application in several anti-infection drug candidate tests.
Both the FDA and the European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA) have recently endorsed the technique.
According to the Duff report the use of microdosing may have helped to avoid the Northwick clinical trials fiasco that led to six volunteers suffering multiple-organ failure.
Talking to DrugResearcher.com about the future of the business, Hague said: "we are moving into partnering drug developers - not just offering our analytical services, but also to add drug development project management to our offering."
