Freenome Holdings Inc. reported it is going public via a special purpose acquisition company. The company said it expects to raise $330 million, which it plans to use for the 2026 launch of its blood-based screening tests for multiple cancers. Backed by an affiliate of Perceptive Advisors - Perceptive Capital Solutions Corp. (PCSP) – and joined by RA Capital, the arrangement includes a commitment of $240 million in equity investments plus about $90 million more held by the SPAC’s trust fund. Other notable investors, including ADAR1 Capital, Bain Capital Life Sciences, and Farallon Capital Management have signed on to participate in the deal.
In a bid to boost its multiomics holdings, Illumina Inc. reported an agreement to buy proteomics technology company Somalogic Inc. from Standard Biotools Inc. for $350 million in cash, plus up to $75 million in near-term performance-based milestones and performance-based royalties.
Less than two months after the June spin-off of Grail Inc. (again), Illumina Inc. revealed a new strategy to cut costs and lift sales growth by focusing on the rapidly evolving multiomics space. Grail, meanwhile, unveiled its own plans to retool, going all in on multi-cancer early detection and cutting headcount 30%.
Bruker Corp. signed a definitive agreement to acquire functional cell biology company Phenomex for $108 million as part of its Project Accelerate 2.0 strategy, which increases focus on the company’s emerging proteomics and spatial biology business. Bruker offered $1 per share, a 150% premium over the 40 cents per share closing price of Phenomex stock on Aug. 16. The all-cash transaction is slated to close in the fourth quarter of 2023.
Oncohost Ltd., Baylor Scott & White Research Institute and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have joined forces in a five-year study to improve personalized cancer therapy by better understanding resistance mechanisms. The team will analyze host response, patient microbiome, tumor DNA and immune system activity of 350 patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
Prognomiq Inc. secured access to 800,000 anonymized biological samples for analysis and detection of dynamic cancer biomarkers as part of a new partnership struck with Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi (KSM), the research and innovation center of Maccabi Healthcare Services, Israel’s largest health maintenance organization. The partnership will enable the creation of a biomarker platform the organizations hope will facilitate early diagnosis and improved outcomes for cancer patients using Prognomiq’s multiomics platform.
Pleno Inc. has secured $15 million in a pre-series A financing led by Medical Excellence Capital and Alexandria Venture Investments. The proceeds will support development of startup Pleno’s Hypercoding multiomic instrument platform. In conjunction with the financing, Pleno named Gregory Lucier as chairman of its board of directors.
Computational disease modeling company Cytoreason Ltd. is expanding its reach into Asia with a recent partnership with South Korean big data company Helixrus Inc., which is focused on biological big data and multiomics. The alliance will focus on leveraging Helixrus’ deep knowledge of the South Korean pharmaceutical market, and extensive network of relationships in Asian markets, to highlight Cytoreason’s capabilities in prioritizing new targets, finding biomarkers, profiling combinations, stratifying patients and other use cases within the drug lifecycle.
Pacific Biosciences of California Inc.’s technology could rapidly increase the number of rare diseases—and their causes—identified by sequencing. Researchers at Children’s Mercy Research Institute in Kansas City found four times as many rare coding structural variants using Pacbio’s highly accurate long reads (Hifi) sequencing than standard sequencing detected. Results of the study were published in Genetics in Medicine.
Prognomiq Inc. nearly doubled its fundraising to date with a new $46 million financing to further develop its multiomics platform to detect cancer and other complex diseases earlier in their development. The financing led by Bruker Corp. along with new investor Catalio Capital Management brought total funds raised $101 million since the company’s founding in 2020.
