Early cancer screening from small volume of blood

Division:Shanghai

Field:Life Science and Health

Project Evaluation:750 Financing Amount:Secret Cede Share:Secret

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Project description

1 Description

EpigeneDX is a liquid biopsy company focused on early cancer screening and differential diagnosis.  The technology is based on a proprietary method to detect methylation profiles of total cfDNA using qPCR or NGS platforms. 

At present, the company has completed the development of individual assays for colorectal cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, ovarian cancer and demonstrated clinical feasibility for various applications in differential diagnostics of these cancers. The results are published in >15 peer-reviewed publications and 6 patents. The available clinical data show that the technology has a superior specificity and sensitivity especially for detection of early stage cancers and pre-cancers. Currently, we are raising funds to combine individual assays for 5 cancers into a single pan-cancer assay, transfer it to NGS platform and perform clinical trial with much large number of samples in order to seek regulatory approval.

2 Innovation

The technology is based on a proprietary method to detect methylation profiles of total cfDNA using qPCR or NGS platforms. The method, AI algorithm and set of biomarkers are fundamentally different from what other liquid biopsy companies such as Grail and Guardant Health are using. This novel approach allows for more accurate detection of early stage cancers and pre-cancers. The unique applications of our method include differentiation from chronic diseases (for example, pancreatic cancer and pancreatitis) which is not possible by using other liquid biopsy assays. 

Clinical feasibility results are  published in 15 peer-reviewed publications and 6 patents. 

3 Market & Risk

The total cancer diagnostics market is one of the biggest in healthcare and is valued at >144B annually. Early cancer screening market using blood testing (so called liquid biopsy) is estimated at >20B worldwide. Great investments have been made in this area (1.6B USD, Grail) and remarkable IPO of Guardant Health demonstrate growing potential of this new area. In contrast to approaches used by Grail and Guardant, our method has the potential to tap into other segments of total cancer diagnostics market such as differential diagnostics.

4 Team & Operation

EpigeneDx was originally founded in 2015 and was recently re-incorporated by new co-founding team. Currently, both co-founders have equal share of the company and the equity is not diluted.