Liquid Biopsy’s Saga Continues with New Financing

There have been some pretty significant milestones that have been accomplished in the liquid biopsy market over the past few months. These milestones range from stellar results from clinical trials – to the launch of new companies in the space.

The latest bit of activity comes from Saga Diagnostics, a Lund, Sweden based company that has raised $4.1 million in a financing round. In a release the company said Hadean Ventures, a Nordic focused European life science fund manager, leads the round, and is joined by a number of existing shareholders including Fårö Capital and the Gunnar Nilsson Cancer Foundation.

“We are very pleased to have Hadean Ventures on board, as one of the premier specialist life science venture funds in the Nordics,” Lao Saal, Saga’s CEO said in a release. “We are looking forward to working with the Hadean team to help shape a new era in cancer diagnostics to improve cancer survivorship.”Saga said the funds will be used to accelerate commercialization of its portfolio of kits and services, continue development of new products, and perform prospective clinical studies. In addition, regulatory activities towards laboratory ISO accreditation and the first CE-IVD marked kits are underway.

The company’s technologies quantify aberrations in DNA, RNA, and circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA), and are capable of achieving limits of detection down to 0.001% mutant allele fraction.

The last few weeks have been significant for the liquid biopsy market. Earlier this month, Thrive Earlier Detection Group, a new player in the space emerged, and announced it had raised $110 million in a series A round.

Grail took up much of the conversation in liquid biopsy for the month of May when it shared favorable new data from the Circulating Cell-free Genome Atlas and was granted Break Through Device Designation by FDA.