Rebus Biosystems Inc. has closed a $20 million series B fundraising round. The financing round was led by Illumina Ventures with participation by Lifecore Partners, Ncore Ventures, Xolon Invest, Ctk Investments, Ray Co. Ltd., Seegene Medical Foundation, Labgenomics Co. Ltd. and Timefolio Asset Management. Rebus builds spatial omics tools, assays and platforms. The company plans to use the new funding to support commercialization of its spatial omics solution and expansion of its marketing, sales, research, and product development teams, said Rebus CEO Paul Sargeant. Rebus plans to launch its automated, standalone Rebus Biosystems instrument and optimized assay kits for spatial transcriptomics early in 2021.
The Lifetime Initiative released a roadmap to revolutionize health care in Europe by implementing cell-based interceptive medicine in a perspective article published Sept. 7 in Nature.
Francis Collins, director of the U.S. NIH, said in a public forum that the agency is "really bullish" about precision medicine. However, while precision medicine requires mounds of data, which soon may be available, Collins said the NIH All of Us research program has drawn the interest of more than 300,000 willing participants to date, adding that the target enrollment of 1 million should be accomplished before the end of 2022.