Biofidelity’s $24m boost is set to reframe diagnostic testing for lung cancer
Biofidelity’s successful $24million financing round, which brings the total funding raised to $60m since being founded in 2019, will accelerate the growth of its game-changing ASPYRE-Lung genomic testing protocol.
ASPYRE-Lung is a completely new category of molecular diagnostic test that can detect biomarkers for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) faster (two-day turnaround time), cheaper, and more accurately than current methods.
Barnaby Balmforth, CEO and co-founder at Biofidelity, told the Cambridge Independent: “In lung cancer, there are more than 30 possible treatments that a patient can receive, and receiving the correct one is dependent on obtaining genomic biomarker testing.
“The only current solution to this is to use DNA sequencing, which requires investment in expensive instrumentation, hiring of skilled staff, and implementation of complex bioinformatics. As a result, such testing is limited to a small number of large laboratories, typically takes weeks to return results, and suffers from high failure rates.
Dr Balmforth continued: “ASPYRE-Lung is a completely different approach, which uses PCR instruments (the same instruments used for Covid testing) to perform complex genomic testing in a simple manner. It is much lower-cost, much faster (two days), has a much lower failure rate, and is much easier to implement in labs.”
Since Biofidelity’s oversubscribed $23m Series A+ investment raise in early 2022, the company has launched ASPYRE-Lung as a clinical test through its US lab in North Carolina, and has launched a reagent kit product which allows other labs to implement the technology locally.
The new funding round includes fresh commitments from current investors including Agilent Technologies, Octopus Ventures, BlueYard Capital, and Longwall Ventures.
As well as accelerating the growth of ASPYRE-Lung, the new investment will enable the establishment of a dedicated manufacturing facility in the UK and drive pipeline expansion efforts across Biofidelity’s innovative technology platforms.
“Biofidelity’s technologies are positioned to address critical gaps in genomic testing and research,” said Tad Weems, managing director of the Early Stage Partnership programme at Agilent Technologies. “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Biofidelity as the team embarks on the next phase of their growth and commercial expansion.”
Dr Balmforth concluded: “This significant investment underlines the confidence of our investors in Biofidelity’s unique technologies and our mission to bring the benefits of precision medicine to all patients.
“At present, the test is based on testing of tissue samples, but we will be extending this to blood-based testing this year.”
Biofidelity is a finalist at the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards, being held on May 16.
