Grail, Illumina's Liquid Biopsy Startup, Secures $100M Series A Funding to Pioneer Multi-Cancer Early Detection

At the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference held earlier this year, Illumina announced a major development: the establishment of a new company, Grail, which secured $100 million in Series A financing. Grail is a startup developing blood-based diagnostic tests for cancer. The primary objective of this tumor DNA sequencing technology is to detect various types of cancer in asymptomatic individuals, thereby enabling early prevention or treatment.

“Grail has a first-mover advantage in the cancer diagnostics market,” CEO Jay Flatley mentioned at Sunday’s conference. He stated that Grail’s “liquid biopsy,” also known as “molecular diagnostics,” would begin to be used by the first batch of users in 2019.

However, other companies have been promoting the concept of “blood tests” for some time. For instance, Guardant Health, a “blood test” company that recently secured $100 million in Series D financing as reported by VCBeat, is a pioneer in this industry. Therefore, the key difference here lies in scale: Grail aims to directly target the mass market. Leveraging Illumina’s strength, Grail will occupy a unique position in the “blood-based cancer detection” market.

“If we can detect stage II of a wide variety of cancers, I firmly believe that Grail’s market will reach approximately $20 billion to $40 billion,” said Flatley. If the test’s accuracy is sufficient to identify stage I cancers, and

If the tissue of origin for cancer can be identified, this market will exceed $100 billion. Backed by initial investments from Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Sutter Hill Ventures, and ARCH Venture Partners, Grail has sufficient capital strength to further advance “blood-based cancer diagnostics.”

“This company differs significantly from other players in the market as we know them today on many levels,” said Flatley. “Most companies engaged in cancer gene sequencing primarily focus on performing such sequencing for patients who have already been diagnosed with cancer. Over the past few years, we and other companies have demonstrated that blood-based cancer detection is feasible. The primary challenge ahead lies in achieving sufficient accuracy to establish this approach as a fundamental method for cancer screening.”

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