Personalis Completes $134 Million IPO to Advance Cancer Genomic Sequencing Platform for Precise Variant Detection

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that biotechnology company Personalis recently announced the completion of a $134 million IPO financing. The funds will be used to expand facilities, and to support product sales, marketing, and research and development efforts. Additionally, the company plans to allocate a portion of the proceeds for acquisitions or strategic investments.

It is reported that Personalis has listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol PSNL. The company sold approximately 7.9 million shares of common stock at a price of $17 per share. The company also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to 1.2 million additional shares at the public offering price.

Morgan Stanley, BofA Merrill Lynch, and Cowen served as joint book-running managers for Personalis’ offering, with Oppenheimer serving as co-manager.

Personalis, founded in 2011 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, provides genome-scale diagnostic services and cancer genomic data analysis services to help biopharmaceutical companies develop personalized immuno-oncology drugs. In 2018, Personalis reported revenue of $37.7 million and a net loss of $19.8 million.

According to Crunchbase, Personalis has completed three rounds of funding since its inception, raising a total of $75 million. Specifically, in October 2013, the company closed a $22 million Series B round led by Abingworth; in January 2015, it completed a $33 million Series C round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners.

Personalis has developed NeXT, a genomic sequencing and analysis platform that analyzes 20,000 human genes. The platform’s tumor and immune molecular profiling capabilities provide a multidimensional view of the tumor and tumor microenvironment from a single, limited tumor sample.

NeXT incorporates Personalis’ proprietary core technology, ACE. ACE technology overcomes the limitations associated with traditional exome and transcriptome sequencing analysis, enhances analytical sensitivity, and enables deeper, more uniform coverage of hard-to-sequence genomic regions. This technology optimizes the workflow from nucleic acid extraction through sample preparation and sequencing to consensus building and variant discovery, thereby accurately capturing genetic variants.

Personalis is also developing a liquid biopsy analysis technology. This technology, expected to launch in 2020, can analyze all human genes.

(Compiled by Jiao Yanli)