On May 6, 2020 GRAIL, Inc., a healthcare company whose mission is to detect cancer early, when it can be cured, reported a $390 million Series D financing round (Press release, Grail, MAY 6, 2020, View Source [SID1234557164]). New investors including Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments), as well as two undisclosed investors, joined existing backers including Illumina, Inc. in this round of funding.
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"GRAIL is making significant progress with our blood-based, multi-cancer early detection test," said Hans Bishop, Chief Executive Officer at GRAIL. "Nearly 80 percent of cancer deaths result from cancers for which there is no screening test today, and GRAIL’s mission is to change that through the early detection and localization of more than 50 cancers. Enabling this through a single blood draw could improve patient access and adherence to cancer screening and address disparities in cancer care by improving access for rural, vulnerable, and under-served populations. We are delighted that such a high-quality group of investors share our vision and recognize the public health benefits of our technology."
The Series D funding adds to the company’s balance sheet and will support continued development and commercialization of GRAIL’s multi-cancer early detection blood test. Since early 2016, GRAIL has raised more than $1.9 billion in four rounds of equity financing to pursue reducing cancer mortality worldwide through multi-cancer early detection.
About GRAIL’s Multi-Cancer Early Detection Test
GRAIL’s multi-cancer early detection test is designed to detect cancers in early stages, when the chance of survival is higher than if cancer is detected after symptoms appear. Clinical data have shown the ability of this technology to detect more than 50 cancer types with a very low false positive rate of less than one percent. GRAIL’s test was designed to minimize false positives in order to limit associated harms, including patient anxiety and unnecessary diagnostic workups. When a cancer signal is detected, the test has been able to identify where in the body the cancer is located with high accuracy, an important step to guiding diagnostic next steps and care.
GRAIL’s methylation-based technology preferentially targets the most informative regions of the genome and is designed to use its proprietary database and machine-learning algorithms to both detect the presence of cancer and identify the tumor’s tissue of origin. GRAIL believes its sequencing database of cancer and non-cancer methylation signatures is the largest of its kind.