NEW YORK – Freenome said Tuesday that Roche has made an investment of $290 million in its company, bringing its total funding to more than $1.1 billion since the firm was founded in 2014.
Freenome's lead diagnostic product is a blood-based early detection test for colorectal cancer, but the firm has maintained that it plans to eventually expand to multiple other tumor types. The new investment from Roche, along with $300 million raised in a series D financing last December, will help support the clinical trials needed to achieve that goal.
According to the company, it plans to launch new studies within the next month.
"With Roche's investment and expertise, we'll be able to further accelerate and augment the development of our platform to test for additional cancers, and expand our real-world data programs," Freenome CEO Mike Nolan said in a statement.
"We believe blood-based multimodal screening and data-driven medical insights will help deliver personalized healthcare. This investment will be an important step to advance early cancer screening, and we look forward to joining Freenome in this journey," added Roche Diagnostics CEO Thomas Schinecker.