By Ron Shinkman, Editor, Laboratory Industry Report
LifeCode, the California-based laboratory firm that focuses on next-generation sequencing assays, has obtained laboratory accreditation from the College of American Pathologists and raised $20.5 million from a variety of investors.
The company also changed its name last month from Silicon Valley Biosystems. Officials said it was more consistent with its mission of providing actionable diagnostics information.
LifeCode has one significant laboratory-developed test in development, an assay known as the Pan Cancer Somatic Panel, which uses next-generation sequencing to detect and analyze a wide variety of cancers in patients.
“NGS-based comprehensive molecular profiling is about to fundamentally disrupt the market for cancer related molecular diagnostics. As sequencing becomes more routine, the bottleneck in the field shifts to the difficult task of providing community physicians with concise, accurate and actionable information regarding their patient’s disease,” said Chris Rivest, LifeCode’s chief executive officer. “Our goal … is to leverage world class computational tools, algorithms, and data science to manage this flood of information for physicians and their patients.”
The round A funding came from Sequoia Capital, The Mayo Clinic, and Mayo Ventures. LifeCode did not disclose how the proceeds would be used.
Sequoia, which is based near LifeCode in the Silicon Valley city of Menlo Park, CA, has funded other laboratory ventures, including Ameritox and Natera Genomics.