NEW YORK – Delve Bio, a new startup with a star-studded team of scientific cofounders, said on Tuesday that it has launched with $35 million in Series A financing.
The San Francisco-based firm will use the funding, led by Perceptive Advisors and joined by Section 32 and GV, to commercialize its metagenomic sequencing-based infectious disease test and advance its pipeline.
"We firmly believe that metagenomic next-generation sequencing delivers the most conclusive, unbiased, and actionable diagnosis of infectious disease," said Joe DeRisi, Delve Bio cofounder and president of the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub. "Delve brings infectious disease diagnostics and the latest innovations in metagenomics together to deliver on the promise to dramatically improve the precision and range of infectious disease diagnosis, discovery, and management — including the integration of host response, antimicrobial resistance detection, and more."
Joining DeRisi as cofounders are Pardis Sabeti of Harvard University and the Broad Institute, Charles Chiu of UCSF, Michael Wilson of UCSF, and Matthew Meyerson of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Former Foundation Medicine CEO and Chairman Michael Pellini has joined the firm's board.
Delve Bio is a UCSF spinout, and its test was developed at UCSF's Center for Next-Gen Precision Diagnostics. The diagnostic platform analyzes all nucleic acids in a single patient sample using next-generation sequencing to detect bacteria, fungi, parasites, and viruses simultaneously in a hypothesis-free manner. Delve Bio also provides a proprietary computational pipeline, to quickly analyze hundreds of millions of sequences to accurately identify pathogens.
Delve Bio holds an exclusive license from UCSF for the development and commercialization of the metagenomic NGS platform, including its clinically validated test for meningitis and encephalitis from cerebrospinal fluid.
"While genomic testing has been transformative for oncology, rare disease, and women’s health, infectious disease has been largely overlooked," said Brad Murray, cofounder and CEO of Delve. "We formed Delve Bio with the vision of bringing infectious disease diagnostics into the genomics era, enabling patients with complex and often life-threatening infections, which cannot be routinely diagnosed, to get a definitive diagnosis."