Grail Raises $390M in Series D Financing

Grail said today that it has raised $390 million in a Series D financing round, which included new investors Public Sector Pension Investment Board, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, and two other undisclosed contributors.

These joined existing backers, including Illumina, who also participated in the new round.

CEO Hans Bishop said in a statement that Grail is making significant progress in bringing its blood-based multi-cancer early detection test to the clinic. The company's approach uses a targeted methylation sequencing panel that preferentially assesses informative regions of the genome to both detect the presence of cancer and identify a tumor’s tissue of origin.

Recent data have shown the ability of the firm's technology to detect more than 50 cancer types with a very low false positive rate of less than one percent, as well as to predict with high accuracy the location of a detected cancer in the body.

"We are delighted that such a high-quality group of investors share our vision and recognize the public health benefits of our technology," Bishop said of the new financing.

Grail said the Series D funding will support continued development and commercialization of its test. Since early 2016, the company has raised a total of more than $1.9 billion in four rounds of equity financing.