Foundation Medicine was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[3] The company was conceived after
Broad Institute researchers
Levi Garraway and
Matthew Meyerson published a 2007 paper detailing a method for large-panel testing of 238 DNA
mutations.[4]
Foundation Medicine launched in 2010 with a $25 million
Series A financing led by
Third Rock Ventures.[5] The company released its first commercial assay, or test, called FoundationOne in 2012.[6] The company also began partnering with pharmaceutical companies to analyze patient samples.[4] The first such program was piloted with
Novartis in 2011,[5] and by 2018, the company had more than 30 partnerships.[7]
Foundation Medicine launched its second test, a
hematologicalbiomarker assay called FoundationOneHeme, in 2013.[8] The company held its initial public offering in August 2013.[9] The following year,
Priority Health in Michigan became the first healthcare plan in the United States to cover the company's tests.[10]
In 2016, using FoundationCore data, Foundation Medicine released anonymized records detailing genomic data on cancers from 18,000 adult patients to the
National Cancer Institute's (NCI) Genomic Data Commons (GDC) portal.[11]
In 2018, Roche acquired Foundation Medicine, and currently operates it as a
subsidiary.[12][13]
The company's FoundationCore database contains more than 300,000 genomic profiles sourced from the results of the company's assays as well as information on over 150 subtypes of cancer.[19]