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Print Edition StoriesThursday, April 15, 2010
Diagnostics startup Foundation Medicine launches with $25M VC round
By Julie M. Donnelly
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Foundation Medicine Inc., a new cancer diagnostics company, has launched with a venture capital funding round of $25 million.
The funding round was led by Cambridge-based Third Rock Ventures. Foundation Medicine, also based in Cambridge, aims to “bring comprehensive cancer genome analysis into routine clinical care,” according to a statement from the company.
The funds will be used to develop clinical laboratory tests that will help oncologists personalize cancer treatment.
Alexis Borisy, the former CEO of Cambridge-based CombinatoRx, which merged last summer with Canada-based Neuromed Pharmaceuticals Inc., will serve as the company’s first CEO. After leaving CombinatoRx last July, he joined Third Rock Ventures in October as entrepreneur-in-residence.
“Over the past decade, cancer genome centers have undertaken the detailed molecular mapping of thousands of cancers, coinciding with development of more targeted cancer therapies,” Borisy. said in a prepared statement. “Technology is now advancing to where it is becoming possible to analyze a patient’s particular tumor comprehensively to map its specific root causes. We believe this comprehensive tumor information could prove important in selecting optimal therapy for some patients. Currently, no mechanism exists whereby clinicians, in the day-to-day practice of clinical oncology, can systematically obtain tumor information and efficiently interpret the specific molecular alterations associated with each patient’s disease.”
The company team includes founding advisors from the Broad Institute, the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School and MIT, representing several different fields, including cancer genomics, cancer biology, clinical oncology and information sciences.
The company’s board of directors will include Borisy, Mark Levin and Robert Tepper, both partners at Third Rock Ventures, and David Schenkein, CEO of Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Third Rock Ventures announced on Wednesday that it plans to raise a $400 million second fund.
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