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| Cleveland Clinic's Eric Klein |
Prostate cancer genomics company GenomeDx Biosciences has raised $25.4 million to back its prostate cancer genomic testing, according to a March 10 SEC filing. The financing disclosure comes just after the San Diego, CA-based startup launched its latest prostate cancer test, Decipher Biopsy, earlier this month. GenomeDx already markets Decipher Post-Op, making the new test its second on the market.
The company bases its products on its Decipher Grid, a urologic oncology genomics database that it says is the largest shared, clinically-annotated genomic expression database in urologic oncology and one of the world's largest global RNA expression databases using cloud-based analytics.
Decipher Biopsy is an RNA expression-based biomarker test intended to predict the risk of high-grade disease, metastasis and cancer-specific death at the time of a prostate biopsy. An estimated 200,000 men in the U.S. every year would have localized disease that would qualify them for Decipher Biopsy testing. It is designed to assess tumor aggressiveness across the full range of patients from those dubbed very low risk to high risk patients.
A study by the Cleveland Clinic found that Decipher Biopsy brought "superior accuracy" to newly diagnosed prostate cancer when combined with traditional clinical risk measures.
"These findings demonstrate the ability of Decipher Biopsy to predict, with a high degree of accuracy, the likelihood of metastasis and other clinical endpoints across low, intermediate, and high risk patients at the time of biopsy," said Dr. Eric Klein, Head of the Glickman Urological and Kidney Institute at Cleveland Clinic, in a statement on the test launch.
He added, "Decipher and GRID provide comprehensive assessment of tumor aggressiveness at a time when clinicians and patients are looking for information beyond standard clinical measures to help guide the optimal care for each patient."
GenomeDx has a prominent roster of investors on its board from Tekla Capital, Baird Capital Management, Capital AG and the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund. Its mostly recently announced financing was a Series B for an undisclosed amount in September 2013. That one was led by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and other investors including Baird, Aeris Capital and CD Ventures.
- here is the SEC filing