Santa Barbara immunotherapy and diagnostic company SerImmune received $8 million in financing from San Francisco-based Illumina Ventures to expand its immune mapping platform and database.

Illumina invests primarily in early-stage companies researching genomics, life science and health care. A subsidiary of pharmaceutical giant Merck also participated in the financing round, alongside other undisclosed investors.

Mapping and cataloguing antibodies and their targets will help the company create diagnostic tools across a range of diseases, therapies and vaccines, said SerImmune CEO Patrick Daugherty.

“SerImmune’s unique technology leverages the power of Next Generation Sequencing to decode the functioning of our highly complex immune system,” Nick Naclerio, founding partner of Illumina Ventures, said in a news release. “We believe that the platform will provide new insights into the antigens and environmental factors involved in human disease, enabling more sensitive and precise diagnostic tests, new vaccines and more targeted biopharmaceuticals.”

• Contact Marissa Nall at mnall@pacbiztimes.com.