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| Company type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Liquid biopsy, oncology, clinical diagnostic, companion diagnostic |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Headquarters | San Diego, California, USA |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Lloyd Sanders, President and CEO |
| Products | Service analyzing circulating tumor cells |
| Website | epicsciences.com |
Epic Sciences is a company that was founded to develop medical diagnostics characterizing circulating tumor cells; its initial product offering was a non-medical service offering analysis services to companies developing drugs.
Epic was founded in 2008, and technology was licensed from Scripps Research Institute, based on inventions made by Peter Kuhn's lab at Scripps. [1] [2] The company's approach involves getting a blood sample, removing red blood cells, putting the remaining cells on a microscope slide, staining the cells with antibodies for a few cancer markers, imaging the slide, then using proprietary image analysis software that counts the stained cells and analyzes the cells based on morphophology and other factors; as of 2014 it took the software around two and a half hours to analyze a single slide; around 12 slides are generated from a standard 7.5 mL blood sample. [3] As of 2014 it was offering its analysis services to drug companies as a way to measure outcomes in clinical trials. [4]
David Nelson was the first President and CEO and in 2012 Epic raised $13M in 2012 from Domain Associates, Roche Venture Fund and Pfizer Venture Investments. [1]
By 2014 Murali Prahalad was president and CEO and in July of that year the company raised an additional $30M. [5] In April 2017, Epic raised another $40 million and as of that date had raise a total of $85.5 million. [6]
References
- ^ a b Fikes, Bradley J. (November 13, 2012). "Epic Sciences raises $13 million". San Diego Union Tribune.
- ^ Bigelow, Bruce (16 February 2012). "Xconomist of the Week: Peter Kuhn on Detecting Circulating Tumor Cells". Xconomy.
- ^ Zeliadt, Nicholette (April 1, 2014). "Capturing Cancer Cells on the Move: Three approaches for isolating and characterizing rare tumor cells circulating in the bloodstream Cancer Treatment from Just a Blood Sample". The Scientist.
- ^ Gravitz, Lauren (February 21, 2014). "Personalized Cancer Treatment from Just a Blood Sample". Discover Magazine.
- ^ Fikes, Bradley J. (July 30, 2014). "Epic Sciences raises $30 million". San Diego Union Tribune.
- ^ "Biopharma just can't get enough of Epic Sciences - MedCity News". medcitynews.com. Retrieved 2017-04-28.