Bezos and Gates bet big on blood testing for cancers!!!!
Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates bet on blood tests for cancer
Published: Jan 12, 2016 1:58 p.m. ET
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Illumina spinoff Grail raises more than $100 million in venture funding
Illumina
Grail’s cancer detection tests will use Illumina’s sequencing technology.
By
CAITLIN
HUSTON
REPORTER
Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates are betting on a startup that aims to detect multiple cancers at an early stage with one blood test, a quest with large potential to help patients but questionable profitability.
Called Grail, the startup was created as a separate company out of Illumina Inc. ILMN, +1.77% a publicly traded DNA-sequencing company, and announced more than $100 million in funding Monday. Illumina and ARCH Venture Partners, a biotech venture firm, led the $100 million series A round, and had participating investments from Bezos Expeditions — Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +0.02% Chief Executive Bezos’ personal investment fund — Microsoft Corp. MSFT, +2.05% cofounder Gates and Sutter Hill Ventures.
Experts say the company‘s technology may actually work, but that it faces obstacles as treatments struggle to catch up with the testing and in making a profit from diagnostics.
Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer at the American Cancer Society, said he’s “excited” about the startup and believes this kind of technology will be successful in early detection of cancer. However, he said it will take some time to develop the testing, and for doctors to figure out what to do with it.
“The science will get us there, but we have to be at least a little bit cautious, ” Lichtenfeld said.
Grail’s cancer detection tests will use Illumina’s sequencing technology to measure circulating nucleic acids in the blood, the company said.
“We hope today is a turning point in the war on cancer,” Jay Flatley, Illumina chief executive and chairman of the board of Grail, said in the announcement. “By enabling the early detection of cancer in asymptomatic individuals through a simple blood screen, we aim to massively decrease cancer mortality by detecting the disease at a curable stage.”
Cancer detection has been moving earlier and earlier, Lichtenfeld said, but detecting it early doesn’t always mean doctors can prevent fatalities. Additionally, some cancers that are caught early may resolve themselves and not necessitate treatment, he said.
The fight against cancer has been heating up in Silicon Valley, and other startups such as Universal Diagnostics have offered blood tests to detect cancers, said Andrew Farquharson, managing director of InCube Ventures, a life sciences venture firm.
“It’s interesting to see a credible player enter what’s becoming a pretty crowded field,” Farquharson said of Illumina.
Diagnostics is a hard field to make money in, Farquharson said, as it often requires large, expensive clinical trials and the consumer does not want to pay a premium for a blood test.
Blood-testing startups were recently dealt a blow after a Wall Street Journal article reported that Theranos, a startup last valued at $9 billion, was not using its proprietary technology to conduct its blood tests.
But that news hasn’t slowed down investors in the sector, Farquharson said.
“Every life science investor in Silicon Valley saw Theranos. None of us thought Theranos was real,” Farquharson said.
Grail also has a built-in advantage because of its ties to Illumina, Farquharson added, a San Diego company worth nearly $24 billion that could continue to provide capital if Grail struggles to find early profits.
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