Cancer IQ announced thursday It has raised $14 million to develop its precision health platform focused on early cancer detection and prevention. The Chicago-based startup said the funding will also help the company strengthen and expand its partnerships, including expanding its network of health systems to eliminate disparities in care.
The Series B round was co-led by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and Amgen Ventures. McKesson Ventures, OSF Ventures — the investment arm of Peoria, Illinois-based OSF HealthCare and a client of CancerIQ — and HealthX Ventures, CancerIQ’s lead Series A investor, also participated in the round. The funding will be used in part to expand the workforce as the company plans to hire 50 people in 2022.
CancerIQ takes a precision medicine approach to prevention through its platform, which the company says is used by clinicians in more than 180 U.S. locations. Embedded directly into the EMR workflow, the platform provides screening tools to help providers engage patients and understand their individual risk for cancer taking into account factors such as family history, genetics and behavior.
The platform is designed to help connect these patients with appropriate care pathways based on guidelines and the latest clinical evidence. According to the company, these pathways include getting an MRI, getting home screening kits, making lifestyle changes, participating in clinical trials, and accessing educational resources.
The company’s black female co-founders have prioritized overcoming systemic barriers to cancer prevention that lead to higher mortality among minorities. Black women, for example, are more likely to be diagnosed with advanced breast cancer, and they are 41 percent more likely to die from breast cancer than white women, according to the latest statistics from the United States. American Cancer Society.
“The cancer research community has made great strides in cancer prevention and treatment,” Dr. Olufunmilyo (Funmi) Olopade, CancerIQ’s co-founder and chief scientific advisor, said in a statement. “But now we must accelerate and expand the clinical pipeline so that diverse patients — those receiving care at academic medical centers and community hospitals — can benefit from these advances.”
Olopade has served on the National Cancer Advisory Committee and is an expert in cancer genetics and precision oncology.
CancerIQ’s new funding announcement comes just a month after a report. President’s Cancer Panel A call for immediate action to alleviate the gap. Specifically, the report points to the need to bridge gaps in cancer screening, risk assessment, and timely follow-up care, especially among diverse, uninsured, or underinsured rural populations.
“CancerIQ’s vision is to end cancer as we know it by eliminating health disparities and universal access to the latest advances in early detection and prevention of cancer,” Feyi Olopade Ayodele, CancerIQ’s co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Screening and prevention services have taken a backseat during the pandemic, so it remains to be seen whether the availability of new cancer prevention tools that CancerIQ claims to offer will have a boost in actual adoption. But it’s clear that early detection is key to overall cancer survival. Not surprisingly, several startups, from liquid biopsy companies to cancer risk assessment companies to precision imaging companies, Embellish the landscape on all targets end cancer.
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