After scoring two European approvals last month for its artificial-intelligence-powered cancer pathology platforms, Paige has secured $100 million in new funding to boost its development of biomarkers as clinical applications.
The New York-based company’s series C round was led by Casdin Capital and Johnson & Johnson Innovation, the drugmaker’s strategic venture capital arm.
The proceeds bring Paige’s total funding to date up to $195 million since it was spun out of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in 2018—including a total of $60 million over the past year from Goldman Sachs, Healthcare Venture Partners and others during a monthslong series B round.
Now, Paige aims to double the size of the company in 2021 by hiring about 70 employees across both its engineering and commercial teams to help drive the adoption of its cancer diagnostic programs by hospitals and laboratories.
Its AI programs are built on years of scanned tissue slides licensed from MSKCC and are designed to spot suspicious areas in real time and flag them for pathologist review.
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“This investment reaffirms the vast potential of the Paige platform for clinical and biopharmaceutical drug development applications,” Paige CEO Leo Grady said in a statement. “These funds will enable us to build additional AI-based products within and outside of oncology, deliver these products to laboratories and clinicians globally, and invest in our talent across engineering and commercial functions.”
In December, the company obtained two CE marks for software aimed at breast and prostate cancers, including the ability to rate tumor samples, deliver a prognosis and guide treatment planning. In the U.S., Paige previously received an FDA breakthrough designation.
“Bending the mortality curve on cancer is a humbling and critical goal requiring big data, big technology and big talent,” said Eli Casdin, chief investment officer of Casdin Capital. “Paige combines all three: Robust AI capabilities, access to millions of digital pathology images linked to the key clinical data modalities of imaging, genomic, and clinical/EMR data, and a growing team purpose built to deliver.”