San Diego Business Journal Profiles Pictor’s Saliva‑Based Proteomics Platform and U.S. Growth Plans

Proteomics Platform Provider Establishes U.S. HQ in Carlsbad

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CARLSBAD, CA – June 2, 2025 – After maintaining a subsidiary in San Diego for several years, multiplex proteomics platform provider Pictor formally established its U.S. headquarters in Carlsbad.

In planting more permanent roots in San Diego County, Pictor is aiming to expand its partnerships with domestic clinical laboratories, particularly local ones like Quest Diagnostics, that work in proteomics, or the study of proteins and their functions, which can offer a more complete portrait of an organism’s structure than genomics.

According to Pictor CEO Jamie Platt, the need for affordable and accessible proteomics testing tools is growing rapidly.

“We’re now seeing that proteomics is on the precipice of that same inflection point that we saw in genomics 15 years ago,” Platt said.

“Proteomics is currently an amazing discovery tool, but we really need to bring it to the clinic, and the only way to bring it to the clinic to impact humans and animals is to really make it more accessible.” 

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Lower Barrier for Entry into Proteomics

Pictor’s PictImager platform can provide 100 results in just a few hours for roughly $40 to $50 per test, according to the company. Laboratories can then leverage those results in the development of laboratory developed tests (LDTs), in vitro diagnostics that are developed and used within a single lab.

Platt argued that the barrier for entry to use PictImager is significantly lower than that of other discovery platforms that are currently available to proteomics researchers, which are also less efficient and more expensive, providing results in roughly a week for thousands of dollars per sample.

“One of the really key parts for our platform is that we can do a lot of this from a non-invasive specimen type, so we have really good success in both animals and humans in using saliva, so there’s no need for a blood draw,” Platt said. “Someone can easily send in a saliva sample and get a result in four hours, which is really remarkable.”

Pictor was founded in 2005 and has been based in New Zealand for much of that time, with additional presences in Australia and India. The company primarily provided diagnostic health testing services for the dairy industry in New Zealand before shifting its focus to proteomics amid increased demand for its human health diagnostic products.

Platt joined Pictor’s board of directors in 2021 and was appointed CEO and managing director of the company in 2023 with more than two decades of experience in the diagnostics industry.

That background includes stints as COO for Personal Genome Diagnostics, which Labcorp acquired in 2022, and as COO for Inivata, Inc., which Neogenomics acquired in 2021.

“Being able to work with pharma and being able to help get therapies into patients sooner, at a time where it’s more cost-effective, and with screening programs that are cost-effective, easy to implement through saliva samples rather than blood draws or blood pricks, it’s really nice to have some of those options,” she said.

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Financing Goals Aimed at Establishing Partnerships

To aid in the company’s U.S. expansion, Pictor announced that it secured $5 million in seed funding, including $3 million from existing investors and $2 million from new investors based in the U.S.

In addition to the seed funding, Pictor intends to launch a Series A funding round in June with the goal of raising around $30 million.

That funding would then help carry the company toward a revenue model based on strategic partnerships and funded co-development, as building out an internal sales team would likely require raising the prices of Pictor’s product portfolio.

“I think what we really want to do is find the right strategics who can provide some revenue through some funded R&D or development efforts, and then we create the bespoke products for them,” Platt said. “We help meet a need that they have in the market or maybe a gap they have in their own product pipeline.”

With potential cuts to federal health programs like Medicare on the horizon that could make it harder for diagnostic testing to remain affordable for providers and researchers, Platt argued that the cost efficiency of Pictor’s products positions the company to grow quickly in the U.S.

“Laboratories are under a lot of pressure to be able to perform testing faster and more affordably, and our platform is one that can definitely do that,” she said.

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Link to San Diego Business Journal Profile

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