Caris Life Sciences has raised $310 million in growth-stage capital, with plans to use the proceeds toward expanding in cancer-focused precision medicine by accelerating new product development and pursuing new clinical trial and biopharmaceutical initiatives. [Caris Life Sciences]

Caris Life Sciences said it has raised $310 million in growth-stage capital, with plans to use the proceeds toward expanding in cancer-focused precision medicine by accelerating new product development and pursuing new clinical trial and biopharmaceutical initiatives.

The capital consists of $235 million in equity financing and $75 million in debt financing.

“As tumor profiling becomes standard practice, it’s important that we continue to grow rapidly as we maintain our leadership position,” Caris chairman and CEO David D. Halbert said yesterday in a statement. “We continue to advance our market-leading tumor profiling platform, clinical trial delivery service, grow our clinical and R&D laboratory facilities, expand our biopharmaceutical partnerships and further expand our investments in AI-powered innovation with our Precision Oncology Alliance collaborators.”

On October 13, Caris launched CODEai (Comprehensive Oncology Data Explorer), an artificial intelligence-based clinico-genomic data platform designed to integrate Caris’ molecular data with cancer treatment information and clinical outcomes data for more than 215,000 patients covering over 1,000,000 data points per patient. According to the company, CODEai contains the largest set of integrated molecular and clinical outcomes data in the industry

The company’s offerings include MI Exome whole exome sequencing with 22,000 DNA genes, and MI Transcriptome whole transcriptome sequencing with 22,000 RNA genes along with cancer-related pathogens, bacteria, viruses and fungi analysis run on every patient.

In April, Caris submitted Pre-Market Approval (PMA) applications for MI Exome CDx and MI Transcriptome CDx to the FDA. The precision medicine assays include key companion diagnostic biomarkers with therapy claims, and detect all classes of alterations including genomic signatures for microsatellite instability (MSI), tumor mutation burden (TMB), and loss of heterozygosity (LOH).

Caris also offers Caris MAI (Molecular Artificial Intelligence), which combines its Caris Molecular Intelligence ® molecular profiling platform with its proprietary artificial intelligence analytics engine DEAN to analyze the whole exome, whole transcriptome and complete cancer proteome. This information, coupled with mature clinical outcomes on thousands of patients, is intended to inform treatment decisions for patients, physicians, payers, and biopharmaceutical organizations.

Caris also serves biopharmas through its Caris Pharmatech business, created after Caris acquired the oncology-focused specialized research management organization Pharmatech last year for an undisclosed price. Caris Pharmatech is designed to assist those companies by helping them access research-ready oncology sites for clinical trials, with the goal of identifying and enrolling more patients faster.

More than 200 research sites are within the Caris Pharmatech Just-In-Time (JIT) Oncology Network—while Caris Pharmatech’s Just-In-Time Clinical Trial Solutions service focuses on rapid site activation and patient enrollment to streamline drug development. And through its Just-In-Time Trial-Matching System, Caris automatically matches patients to clinical trials so that trial sites can be activated and eligible to enroll patients within one week.

Founded in 2008, Caris Life Sciences is headquartered in Irving, TX, with additional offices in Phoenix, Denver, New York, and Basel, Switzerland. Caris provides its offerings and services throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and other international markets.

The equity financing was co-led by Highland Capital Management and Coatue, with participation from funds and accounts advised by Sixth Street, T. Rowe Price Associates, OrbiMed, Millennium Management, Neuberger Berman, ClearBridge Investments, First Light Asset Management and other undisclosed investors.

“We are thrilled that our new partners share our vision to be the industry-leader in the precision medicine space,” Halbert added.

The debt financing came from Sixth Street as an extension of a $150 million structured debt financing that Caris raised in September 2018 from the global investment firm.

“By growing its platform, increasing its research and testing capacity, and strengthening its client partnerships, Caris has steadily advanced its position as the leading tumor profiling company,” said Vijay Mohan, co-founding partner at Sixth Street.

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