VC Firms Still Find Liquid Biopsy Sexy

DiaCarta’s recent series B round shows that the promise of liquid biopsy for cancer detection continues to be attractive to investors. The Richmond, CA-based company revealed it has completed a $45 million funding round, with the closing led by Fortune Fountain Capital and subscribed to by Good Health Capital. The series B financing will support DiaCarta’s core XNA technology platform for early cancer detection and help the company expand its diagnostic products for non-invasive early detection and monitoring of cancers. The company said the plan is to perform the clinical trials for noninvasive early cancer detection, and include recurrent and monitoring indications. Funding will also support the commercial launch of ColoScape, a highly sensitive in vitro diagnostic assay for the detection of colorectal cancer in liquid biopsy and tissue samples. Approved for in vitro diagnostic use in Europe, ColoScape uses DiaCarta’s XNA-based clamping technology to detect 20 DNA mutation markers from four oncogenes. ColoScape can run on a variety of commonly used real-time PCR platforms using kits that can complete the assay in less than two and a half hours with as little as 20 ng of DNA from formalin-fixed, paraffin embedded tumor, plasma or stool samples. “The difference between our technology and everything else out there is that everyone is talking about doing deep sequencing,” Mike Powell, MD, CSO for DiaCarta, told MD+DI. “The problem with that is you have to do a lot o...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Medical Device Business IVD Source Type: news