Cancer early-screening unicorn GRAILl received $390 million in round D financing

recently, GRAIL, a star company dedicated to early cancer diagnosis, announced the completion of a $390 million round D financing to support the development and commercialization of its liquid biopsy tests to detect multiple types of cancer. Since 2016, the company has raised more than $1.9 billion through four rounds of financing aimed at reducing mortality among patients worldwide through early detection of cancer.GRAIL combines next-generation gene sequencing (NGS) technology, cutting-edge computer and data science, and large-scale clinical research to develop liquid biopsies for early cancer diagnosis. The liquid biopsy was developed to extract cellless DNA (cfDNA) from the patient's blood and then to discover the presence of the cancer and its tissue origin through an analysis of the methylated state of cfDNA.It has built a liquid biopsy based on cancer methylation characteristics by comparing cfDNA methylation maps from a large number of cancer patients and healthy volunteers, in conjunction with machine learning. Previous research has showed that early detection of cancer can detect more than 50 cancers at all stages through the blood, with a false positive rate of less than 1%. Designed to minimize false positives to reduce the associated harm associated with patient anxiety disorders and unnecessary diagnostic tests. When cancer signals are detected, the test accurately identifies the location of the cancer in the human body, which is an important step in guiding the next step in diagnosis and care.In a study of thousands of patients led this year by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Mayo Clinic, a leading medical research organization, researchers used the test to analyze cfDNA from 6,689 blood samples, including patients known to be diagnosed with cancer and cancer-free subjects. The test results showed that the overall specificity of the method was 99.3%, which meant that only 0.7% were falsely positive. All 50 types of cancer with stage I-III sensitivity were 43.9% (the exact percentage of actual cancer cases detected).In addition, the team further analyzed the effectiveness of the method in 12 cancers with high deaths in the United States. Of the 12 cancers, the method was 67.3 percent more sensitive to earlier cancers. The later the cancer is phased out, the higher the sensitivity, and the proportion of cancers in stages I, II, III and IV that can be accurately detected is 39%, 69%, 83% and 92%, respectively. When cancer is detected, the method correctly identifies more than 90% of the cancer's originating organs or tissues, providing important information for disease diagnosis and treatment.“ Nearly 80 percent of cancer deaths are caused by cancers that have not yet been screened, and GRAIL's mission is to change that by identifying and targeting more than 50 cancers early," said Mr. Hans Bishop, GRAIL's chief executive. "
(Creative Exchange)