Foundation Medicine Inc., a Cambridge cancer diagnostics firm whose shares nearly doubled in their stock market debut last September, said Monday that it has gotten regulatory approval to market one of its cancer tests in the European Union.
The company's first clinical product is FoundationOne, a genetic testing tool that can develop a genomic profile of a solid tumor from a sample taken from a patient. The tool helps doctors sort through treatment options.
The promise of such personalized medicine helped Foundation Medicine raise nearly $90 million in venture capital, including investments from Microsoft's Bill Gates and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner before the company went public.
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In addition to announcing that it had received approval in Europe, Foundation Medicine said it has established a distribution partnership with a Spanish company that will help it distribute clinical products to doctors in Spain and Portugal. The Spanish company is Laboratorios LETI.
Foundation Medicine said it expects the partnership to serve as a model for similar commercial relationships with distributors in other markets.
The company also announced the appointment of Urmi Prasad Richardson as international vice president.
A veteran of Chiron, Novartis, and Immucor, she will be based in Germany. Her job will be to lead the company's ongoing international commercialization efforts.
Foundation Medicine was formed by Third Rock Ventures, a venture capital firm with offices in Boston.
FoundationOne, the cancer test for solid tumors, has been available to patients in the United States since mid 2012.
Chris Reidy can be reached at reidy@globe.com.