BioCentury
ARTICLE | Product Development

Sequential insights

How Grail is studying cfDNA from liquid biopsies to screen for cancer

June 23, 2017 11:36 PM UTC

After showing it can detect both occult and late-stage cancers, Grail Inc. is now ready to tackle developing its first cancer screening assay. The company has begun clinical studies that will help it build and test assays to address shortcomings in established screening protocols for individual cancers, with the eventual goal of creating a pan-cancer assay.

When Illumina Inc. launched Grail and led its $100 million series A round in January 2016, the sequencing company’s then CEO and current executive chairman, Jay Flatley, described an ambitious plan to use deep sequencing technology to develop and market a pan-cancer screening test within just three years...