Harbinger Health raises $140m to study early-stage cancer test
Navigating the Future of Oncology with Harbinger Health’s Pioneering Blood-Based Screening Test
Harbinger Health, a company deeply committed to early cancer detection, has successfully raised a formidable $140 million in Series B funding, earmarking these funds to meticulously study its innovative blood-based screening test in the relentless pursuit of pioneering healthcare solutions. Harbinger Health's profound journey began in 2020 with the firm belief that it could offer a superior approach to multi-cancer early detection, thereby providing a glimmer of hope and a potential lifeline for those affected by this devastating disease.
Harbinger Health's rigorous approach is a tribute to scientific progress and a beacon of hope for people living with cancer in the early stages. The cash will be used to complete a 10,000-subject clinical trial on its blood-based multi-cancer screening test, a venture that will shed light on the enigmatic realm of early cancer diagnosis and therapy. To detect early-stage cancers, developers of blood-based multi-cancer screening tests, such as Illumina's Grail, use a variety of methodologies, including genomic sequencing and assessing signals from cell-free DNA (cfDNA) methylation, mutations, and analytes, which include proteins.
Harbinger Health's model, which is set to launch in 2025, cleverly integrates artificial intelligence with insights into an epigenetic-based biological programme shared by the majority of tumours. The Harbinger analysis focuses on individuals with early-stage malignancies, a vital phase in which physicians have effective treatments for many tumours. However, they are frequently impeded by a lack of disease diagnosis techniques before they proceed to more severe stages. As a result, this novel strategy tries to detect tumours early and allows patients to get therapy while their odds of long-term survival are much higher.
In a study of 1,046 participants, Harbinger discovered that its test has an 82% overall sensitivity of cancer detection and a 95% specificity. This study's participants were divided into two groups: newly diagnosed, treatment-naive cancer and those with no history, diagnosis, or cancer symptoms. The sensitivity for stage one malignancies, which are the most severe, was 74%, while stage two cancer sensitivity was 84%. These encouraging findings show that the Harbinger test may be competitive, opening up a new vista in the field of oncology.
However, it is important to note that discrepancies between studies make cross-trial comparisons inaccurate, but the results imply that the Harbinger test may be competitive. Grail, for example, employed a greater specificity of 99.5 per cent in critical research, reducing false positives and making a comparison to Harbinger difficult, but reported results at 95 per cent specificity early in development. Grail's sensitivity for stage one to three tumours varied from 56% to 90%, with 95% specificity.
Harbinger is running a 10,000-person Cancer ORigin Epigenetics-Harbinger Health (CORE-HH) research to demonstrate that their test meets an unmet screening demand. According to ClinicalTrials.gov, the CORE-HH study's primary completion date is December 2023, with full completion expected for July 2025. This discovery represents a significant step towards understanding and perhaps revolutionising cancer detection and therapy, providing a beacon of hope to many people worldwide.