ArcherDX has completed a $55 million Series C financing round, resulting in just over one-third of the $150 million in total capital raised by the cancer diagnostics developer since it was founded in 2013.
ArcherDX said it will use proceeds from the financing to expand its global commercial footprint, as well as support the registration and launch of its STRATAFIDE pan-solid tumor companion diagnostic (CDx). The company also plans to use its Series C capital to support development of its Personalized Cancer Monitoring (PCM) platform, in tandem with ongoing collaborations it has established with several biopharmas.
Upon approval, ArcherDX said, STRATAFIDE would be the first multi-gene, pan-solid tumor companion diagnostic designed to accept both tissue and blood samples. According to the company, ArcherDX will enable faster turnaround times by allowing samples to be analyzed at any local lab with a sequencer, unlike diagnostics that rely on centralized testing labs.
STRATAFIDE has been developed to identify actionable genomic alterations in tissue or blood, including alterations targeted by emerging therapies undergoing clinical trials, therapies already recommended in clinical guidelines such as those of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), and therapies approved by the FDA. STRATAFIDE received the FDA’s Breakthrough Device Designation in January 2019, and has been used by investigators in studies reported in more than 150 peer-reviewed publications.
The PCM platform is intended to apply ArcherDX technology in order to improve detection of minimal residual disease (MRD) and address needs associated with early-stage solid tumors, such as recurrence surveillance and therapy monitoring and evolution.
“We believe millions of cancer patients could benefit from a more accurate, personalized means of detecting relapse, when the cancer burden is low and more treatable. We remain driven to enable personalized molecular diagnostics that are accurate, actionable and local,” ArcherDX Co-Founder and CEO Jason Myers, Ph.D., said in a statement.
Perceptive Advisors led the Series C financing round, joined by new investors that included Redmile Group, Soleus Capital, Driehaus Capital Management and ArrowMark Partners—as well as existing investors Sands Capital, Longwood Fund, PBM Capital and its affiliates, Boulder Ventures, and other investors which were not disclosed.
“We expect the Company’s flagship products to enable tailored therapeutic selection for cancer patients by providing actionable insights,” stated Mike Altman, Managing Director, Perceptive Advisors. “Moreover, ArcherDX’s AMP technology enables decentralized testing, which we believe uniquely positions the Company to broadly impact the molecular cancer testing market.”
