Bill Gates, Evan Jones and Yuri Milner Join Existing Investors; Jones Appointed to the Board of Directors
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., January 8, 2013 - Foundation Medicine, Inc. today announced an expansion of its Series B financing, raising an additional $13.5 million and bringing the total raised in the round to $56 million. The new investors include Bill Gates, Evan Jones and Yuri Milner.
"Advances in understanding the human genome are having a dramatic impact on almost every area of medicine," said Bill Gates. "Foundation Medicine's approach in harnessing the power of genomic data to improve care for cancer patients could represent an extremely important step forward in improving routine cancer care. I'm happy to be supporting this quite promising approach."
Expansion of Series B Supports Continued Growth
The proceeds from the expanded Series B financing will help Foundation Medicine continue to expand commercial operations and clinical trials, scale laboratory capabilities, and develop additional genomic profiling and information services.
"Bill Gates, Evan Jones and Yuri Milner have each driven the widespread adoption of innovations that continue to impact the lives of millions of people," said Michael J. Pellini, M.D., president and chief executive officer, Foundation Medicine. "This innovation is critically important in healthcare and medicine, which often lag behind in the adoption of new information technology. We are proud that these individuals support the mission of Foundation Medicine as we continue to bring advanced cancer genomics into everyday clinical practice."
Foundation Medicine's first product, FoundationOne™, is a genomic assay for all solid tumors that analyzes tumor DNA and provides a concise report to help physicians match patients with the targeted drugs or clinical trials best suited for their unique cancer. Launched in June 2012, FoundationOne has been ordered by more than 700 oncologists from 21 countries.
This second closing for the Series B financing follows the first closing completed on September 10, 2012. The first closing attracted a number of new investors, including public crossover funds Deerfield Management Company, L.P., Casdin Capital, Redmile Group and one undisclosed investor and strategic investors Roche Venture Fund, WuXi Corporate Venture Fund and Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings (LabCorp®). These investors joined founding investor Third Rock Ventures and previous venture capital backers Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Evan Jones to Join Board of Directors
Also, Foundation Medicine today announced that Evan Jones has been nominated to join Foundation Medicine's Board of Directors. Mr. Jones is the managing member of jVen Capital, LLC and previously was the co-founder, chairman and CEO of Digene Corporation.
Mr. Jones commented, "Foundation Medicine is working to change the paradigm of cancer treatment so that each patient's care can be informed by a precise blueprint of the genomic and other molecular changes that contribute to their disease. I've seen firsthand that a comprehensive understanding of diseases like cancer can turn a death sentence into a medically addressable challenge, and I'm confident that Foundation Medicine's approach will lead to important advances in oncology. It will be an honor to join their Board of Directors."
About FoundationOne™
FoundationOne is a fully informative genomic profile that complements traditional cancer decision tools and often expands treatment options by matching each patient with targeted therapies that may be relevant to the molecular changes in their tumor. Using next-generation sequencing, FoundationOne interrogates all genes somatically altered in human cancers that are validated targets for therapy or unambiguous drivers of oncogenesis based on current knowledge. It reveals all classes of genomic alterations including base substitutions, insertions, deletions, copy number alterations and select rearrangements. Each patient's genomic profile is reported to the physician matched with targeted therapies and clinical trials that may be relevant based on the molecular blueprint of their tumor. Results are supported by the latest scientific and medical evidence. FoundationOne has been optimized to fit easily into the clinical workflow of a practicing oncologist. It is available for all solid tumors and clinical grade results can be obtained from as little as 50ng of DNA obtained from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tumor tissue samples. FoundationOne is a laboratory-developed test performed at Foundation Medicine's CLIA-certified facility and is currently available for all solid tumor types. Please visit www.FoundationOne.com for more information.
About Foundation Medicine
Foundation Medicine is a molecular information company dedicated to a transformation in cancer care in which treatment is informed by a deep understanding of the genomic changes that contribute to each patient's unique cancer. The company's initial clinical assay, FoundationOne™, is a fully informative genomic profile to identify a patient's individual molecular alterations and match them with relevant targeted therapies and clinical trials. Foundation Medicine's molecular information platform aims to improve day-to-day care for patients by serving the needs of clinicians, academic researchers and drug developers to help advance the science of molecular medicine in cancer. For more information, please visit www.FoundationMedicine.com or follow Foundation Medicine on Twitter (@FoundationATCG).
Foundation Medicine® is a registered trademark, and FoundationOneTM is a trademark of Foundation Medicine, Inc.
Contact:
Dan Budwick
Pure Communications, Inc.
(973) 271-6085