South SF Company Receives $160M For Early Cancer Detection Study

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- -Freenome, a biotechnology company that has pioneered a platform for early cancer detection through a routine blood draw, is receiving $160 million in financing, bringing its total financing to $238 million to date, the company announced Wednesday.

Freenome has said that it plans to use the proceeds to further develop its early cancer detection blood test.

"The company plans to conduct a pivotal validation study and submit to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ... the first application of its platform in colorectal cancer screening and expand its laboratory infrastructure and software to support its continued growth," Freenome said in a statement.

The latest financing was led by investors RA Capital Management and Polaris Partners. They were joined by other new investors including Perceptive Advisors, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Roche Venture Fund, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, and the American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge Ventures.

Existing Freenome investors also participated in the financing, the company said, including Andreessen Horowitz, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Data Collective Venture Capital, Section 32, and Verily Life Sciences,a subsidiary of Alphabet focused on life sciences and healthcare.

“We are fortunate to have an experienced and proven group of biotech and healthcare investors who share our mission of making early detection of cancer a routine part of patient care,” Freenome Chief Executive Officer Gabe Otte said.

Freenome’s first cancer test is for the screening of colorectal cancer, the second deadliest form of cancer in the U.S. When identified early, colorectal cancer has a 90 percent five-year relative survival rate compared to 14 percent when detected at a more advanced stage according to data from the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program.

"The most affordable and effective treatment for metastatic cancer is to detect it early, when the tumor is still small and local, and we can cure it with surgery. It’s with that vision that we have invested in Freenome,” RA Capital Managing Partner Peter Kolchinsky said. “Freenome’s multiomics platform is unlike anything we’ve seen, and we believe it can unlock the promise of using blood tests to detect and treat cancer early."