Epic Advances Liquid Biopsy

San Diego diagnostics company Epic Sciences, Inc. is in an epic position to grow its multi-omic platform and expand operations.
On June 2, the company announced it had completed a $43 million first close of its Series F financing round, led by Arsenal Capital Partners with support from existing investors Blue Ox Healthcare Partners, Deerfield Management and Labcorp.
This latest funding round brings Epic’s total capital raises to $185 million to date.

“We are extremely proud to have a world-class group of strategic partners backing us to meet the growing demand for Epic’s liquid biopsy offerings,” said Lloyd Sanders, president and CEO of Epic Sciences. “We are continuing to innovate testing for both the research and clinical markets. Our biopharma partners are driving our presence into drug development efforts and an increasing number of clinical trials, while we continue to see growing excitement from practicing clinical oncologists for DefineMBC and future tests.”

Breast Cancer Test

In May, Epic added to its CLIA Library DefineMBC – the company’s novel blood-based test for metastatic breast cancer.
“The test is intended to be used when tissue biopsy is inaccessible or infeasible,” Sanders said. “The test can provide insight on how a patient’s metastatic breast cancer is evolving and becoming more heterogeneous over time and what options such as HER2 targeted therapies, antibody drug conjugates, immunotherapies, or others may be the next best treatment or clinical trial for a patient.”
DefineMBC has been reporting patient results since April and has shown sensitivity, specificity, accuracy and precision in detecting the presence of cancer. Epic Sciences has partnered with over 20 US-based medical oncologists to further refine reporting of test results, as well as case study reviews to finalize formatting and communication of findings. The company is also collaborating with eight academic institutions and the top trial co-operative groups as well as drug development companies to generate data in the context of current of future clinical scenarios.
“With growing demand for liquid biopsy solutions from medical oncologists, researchers, drug developers and patients, Epic will use the new capital to accelerate the commercial launch of DefineMBC and continue to drive comprehensive liquid biopsy into key development trials,” Sanders said. “The company is also recruiting top talent to scale technical operations and scientific support functions.”

New Talent on Board

The funding round is also bringing in notable expertise to the company’s board of directors. James Rothman Ph.D. is the chair of Arsenal’s Healthcare Advisory Board and a renowned cell biologist and Nobel Laureate who was formerly chief scientist of GE Healthcare. And Richard Eglen, Ph.D. a senior advisor of Arsenal who brings decades of industry leadership experience with companies such as PerkinElmer, Roche Bioscience and Corning Inc.

“What is most exciting about Epic’s approach is the ability to derive valuable insights from data at the cellular and subcellular level for both drug developers and clinicians in oncology,” said Dr. Rothman, who also serves as the Sterling Professor and chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University School of Medicine.
In addition to DefineMBC, Epic also offers a CLIA laboratory test for the3 detection of prostate cancer, AR-V7, which is marketed by Exact Sciences as Oncotype DX AR-V7 Nucleus Detect.
The company is also currently developing a portfolio of over 35 research assays and plans to offer its PSMA liquid biopsy assay as well as other capabilities for prostate cancer patient testing from its CLIA laboratory in 2023.