Harbinger Health intends to use the funds to complete the Cancer ORigin Epigenetics-Harbinger Health 10,000-participant clinical trial of its blood-based cancer screening platform
Harbinger Health is engaged in the development of blood-based early cancer screening platforms. (Credit: fernando zhiminaicela from Pixabay)
Harbinger Health, an American biotechnology firm focused on developing cancer screening and detection methods, has secured $140m in Series B funding to expedite the development of its early-stage blood-based cancer screening platform.
The investment round saw the participation of the company’s founder, Flagship Pioneering, along with new global institutional investors including Pictet and Partners Investment.
Catalyst and M&G Investments’ purpose-led private assets strategy were also part of the round.
Harbinger Health intends to use the funds from the Series B round to complete the Cancer ORigin Epigenetics-Harbinger Health (CORE-HH) 10,000-participant clinical trial of its cancer screening platform.
The proceeds will also be used in the advancement of its two-tier testing model, for starting additional clinical trials in high-risk populations, and for growing its data science and commercial teams and capabilities.
The biotechnology company is creating a patented two-tier testing model to make cancer screening available on a worldwide scale.
Since its incorporation in 2020, Harbinger Health has raised around $190m in total funding. This includes an initial capital commitment of $50m from Flagship Pioneering in December 2021 when it had officially launched the bioplatform company.
Harbinger Health’s product development strategy aims to make low-cost population testing affordable and improve positive predictive value (PPV) to lessen the burden of false positives.
The strategy is also designed to implement quantitative individual longitudinal monitoring to better support clinical decision-making in case cancer is detected.
The company’s platform, HarbingerHx, uses machine learning, proprietary knowledge about the molecular biology of cancer origins, and expanding datasets to create clinically useful insights.
Harbinger Health CEO Stephen Hahn said: “At Harbinger, our goal is to lead the way to a future where cancer screening is routine, affordable and accessible for everyone.
“We have a unique opportunity to make cancer screening tools work better and work for more people through our biological and technical solutions.
“We are achieving this by combining machine learning with insights into the biology of cancer’s origins and individual risk in order to provide actionable information to providers, enabling them to guide improved clinical decision making for their patients.”
The biotechnology firm plans to introduce its first product, a laboratory-developed test (LDT) in 2025 for the early identification of cancer.
Harbinger Health intends to use the LDT, the HarbingerHx platform, and its DNA library archiving technology to enable the launch of new medicines that target specific disease types and population segments.