Roche Invests $290 Million in Freenome

<p><strong><span class&equals;"xn-location">SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO<&sol;span><&sol;strong> &&num;8212&semi; Freenome&comma; a privately held biotech company&comma; announced that Swiss healthcare giant Roche has made an investment of <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;290 million<&sol;span>&comma; bringing Freenome&&num;8217&semi;s total funding to more than <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;1&period;1 billion<&sol;span> since the company was founded in 2014&period; This funding follows Freenome&&num;8217&semi;s recent <u>Series D<&sol;u> financing of <span class&equals;"xn-money">&dollar;300 million<&sol;span> in December&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Detecting cancer early&comma; when it&&num;8217&semi;s most treatable&comma; improves survival rates&period; Each year&comma; approximately 53&comma;000 Americans die from colorectal cancer &lpar;CRC&rpar;&period; If diagnosed early when localized&comma; the survival rate for CRC is over 90&percnt;&comma; compared to only 14&percnt; once the cancer has spread&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Freenome has developed a machine learning-enabled multiomics blood test for CRC screening&comma; which is being validated in PREEMPT CRC&comma; its large&comma; prospective registrational study that is in the final stages of enrollment&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company is also extending its multiomics platform with biomarkers for other cancer types currently embedded to develop tests in new indications&comma; and recently presented promising <u>data<&sol;u> in the detection of pancreatic cancer&period; Next month&comma; the company will expand and launch additional multicancer clinical studies focused on more tailored baskets of screening tests&comma; based on an individual&&num;8217&semi;s risk&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;With Roche&&num;8217&semi;s investment and expertise&comma; we&&num;8217&semi;ll be able to further accelerate and augment the development of our platform to test for additional cancers&comma; and expand our real-world data programs&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said <span class&equals;"xn-person">Mike Nolan<&sol;span>&comma; chief executive officer of Freenome&period; &&num;8220&semi;From the beginning&comma; our focus has been on ensuring our tests will be available for everyone and Roche&&num;8217&semi;s support brings us  closer to making that a reality&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We are happy to support Freenome&&num;8217&semi;s innovative approach to early cancer detection&comma;&&num;8221&semi; said Thomas Schinecker&comma; CEO of Roche Diagnostics&period; &&num;8220&semi;We believe blood-based multimodal screening and data-driven medical insights will help deliver personalized healthcare&period; This investment will be an important step to advance early cancer screening&comma; and we look forward to joining Freenome in this journey&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;