Guardant Health is a four-year-old, Redwood City, California–based biotech that sells blood tests to track and potentially detect cancer. Its core product is a liquid biopsy test that sequences cell-free tumor DNA from blood to reconstruct tumor genomes and monitor disease. The company says its sequencing technology has become roughly 1,000 to 10,000 times more accurate, allowing detection of trace DNA fragments. Guardant reports matching tissue biopsies with 99.3% diagnostic accuracy and often finds more mutations than doctors detect with traditional biopsies. The company aims to help one million people over the next five years. Financially, Guardant raised $360 million in the reported round, bringing its total funding to $550 million. Guardant Health develops a non-invasive genomic sequencing test that detects tumor DNA fragments from two vials of blood, claiming 99.3% diagnostic accuracy versus tissue biopsies. The company says its sequencing technology has improved roughly 1,000 to 10,000 times in sensitivity, allowing reconstruction of tumor genomes and detection of mutations often missed in tissue. Guardant operates a testing business serving hospitals, payers/insurers, international distributors and pharmaceutical companies that pay for testing services. It reports a run rate of about 20,000 patients per year and says roughly 2,000 U.S. oncologists use the test. The company is building a large database of metastatic disease to support drug discovery and to act as a full-service partner to pharma across clinical trials. Guardant is a roughly 135-person company with nearly $200 million raised to date. Guardant Health commercialized Guardant360, a biopsy-free blood cancer screening test built on proprietary DNA sequencing that pulls tumor DNA fragments from the bloodstream to profile genomic mutations. Guardant360 launched about a year ago as the company's first commercially available product and is positioned to help physicians match patients to effective therapies in real time. The test is marketed to detect genomic alterations for breast, lung, skin, colorectal, and prostate cancers without a traditional tissue biopsy. Guardant Health says only about 30 percent of the oncologist market has access to high-tech solutions, and competitors named in the articles include Illumina, Sequenom, and Foundation Medicine. The company plans to use the new funding to scale operations and expand Guardant360's availability in clinics. Its total disclosed funding now stands at $90 million. Guardant Health develops Guardant 360, a non-invasive cancer screening test that analyzes blood samples instead of tissue. The test was built to help patients avoid risky biopsies, which can cost around $10,000 for someone without health insurance. The company plans to use the new capital to expand the commercial release of Guardant 360. Guardant Health raised a fresh $30 million funding round led by Khosla Ventures with participation from Sequoia Capital and Pejman Mar Ventures. Founded in 2012 and based in Redwood City, Calif., the startup has now raised a total of $40 million to date. Guardant Health offers Guardant360, a non-invasive pan-cancer blood test that reconstructs portions of a patient’s tumor genome from trace fragments of tumor DNA in the bloodstream using its "Digital Sequencing" technology. The test is designed to let oncologists more frequently obtain up-to-date genetic information and match patients to appropriate therapies without surgical biopsies. The company says 75% of cancer patients take ineffective drugs due to a lack of personalized mutation information, and cites a clinical study of 250 patients in which nearly 90% of tumor mutations were detectable in blood and could be treated accordingly. Guardant launched to the public and has secured state and federal approvals for the test. The startup has raised funding to support commercialization and continued deployment of the technology; it has deep technical talent in its co-founders Helmy Eltoukhy and AmirAli Talasaz, both with backgrounds at the Stanford Genome Technology Center.

Total raised

$550M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

May 2017