WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GoodCell (“LifeVault Bio”), the company decoding human health to extend and improve the quality of life through technology powered by science, today announced that it has raised $17.9 million in a preferred equity round. GoodCell intends to use this latest funding to support the company’s IP for detecting and monitoring accumulated genetic variation within blood cells. Financing will also help advance the company’s big data analytics platform to validate novel applications for its health tracking and risk identification solutions through GoodCell Diagnostics and GoodCell’s personal biobanking service.
“COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of solutions that can help people understand their risks and stay ahead of their health,” said Trevor Perry, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, GoodCell. “We are grateful for a growing investor community that shares our passion for delivering on the promise of personalized healthcare. This latest capital infusion will help us achieve our next stage of development for our platform as we introduce new solutions to the market that change the way individuals, researchers, clinicians and pharmacists predict, identify and monitor disease risk.”
Inherited genetic predisposition to disease has become a fixture of research and clinical care. However, accumulated, or somatic, genetic variations that emerge as a result of age and environmental factors remain a relatively underexplored area of study. A growing body of research suggests that accumulated genetic variations that culminate in the expansion of detrimental variations and cause damage to DNA within blood cells – a phenomenon known as clonal hematopoiesis (CH) – may be linked to higher disease risk. Notably, research continues to bolster linkages between these somatic changes and the aberrant immune response associated with severe COVID-19 cases. These variations have also been correlated to a predisposition toward certain cancers and cardiovascular conditions.
GoodCell, which recently filed patent applications for methods of predicting susceptibility to infectious disease and related methods of treatment, uniquely measures and monitors both inherited and acquired genetic variations in blood stem cells and other nucleated cells in blood over time. Proceeds from this latest raise will support the ongoing buildout of the company’s proprietary data aggregation and analytics technology platform, which aims to decode our cells and harness their insights to advance population and personal health. The funding is also intended to support exploration and development of novel applications for these data streams to support emerging science as it relates to pathogen susceptibility, cell quality, autoimmune and inflammatory disease assessment and more.
Notably, the company’s latest filings informed the development of the GoodCell Pathogen Susceptibility Testing Platform and serve as the foundation for a recently launched three-stage study to investigate COVID-19 in collaboration with New York Blood Center. The resulting research, anticipated in the coming months, is expected to provide important data on COVID-19 risk factors that could ultimately inform the creation of a first-of-its-kind susceptibility test to predict who is most likely to develop the most severe outcomes from the virus.
“Traditional risk factors such as age, weight and chronic conditions are important, but offer an incomplete picture for assessing susceptibility to an ailment,” said Brad Hamilton, Founder and Chief Science Officer, GoodCell. “Mounting evidence suggests that accumulated genetic variations in our cells play a significant role, as well. Moreover, the ability to evaluate and measure cell quality has the potential to improve quality and consistency of process while potentially reducing costs associated with the manufacturing of cellular products prior to clinical application.”
The funds will also be used to expand GoodCell’s personal biobanking service, which is a personal health platform that tracks, monitors and supports identification of potential health risk factors and provides long-term storage of cells for potential future therapeutic uses, offered through a GoodCell membership. The company intends to apply a portion of this latest round of capital to continue growing its longitudinal precision care offering, broaden its menu of personalized health screening packages, and scale its sales and customer experience team to support new members.
“Our vision is for every person to have greater control over their health by providing access to a platform that helps decode our cells and can extend the quality of life for individuals, their families and all of humankind,” continued Perry. “When science and technology come together, great things happen. We are putting this philosophy into motion with our blood, which we believe contains the building blocks for the medical advances and treatments of tomorrow.”
To learn more about GoodCell Diagnostics, visit https://goodcell.com/the-science/diagnostics/. To learn more about GoodCell's personal biobanking service, visit https://goodcell.com/the-science/personal-biobanking/.
About GoodCell
GoodCell’s vision is to give every person control over their health by providing access to a science- backed, technology-forward platform that decodes the common language of his or her cells and extends the quality of life for individuals, their families and all of humankind. The company’s platform uniquely combines personal biobanking, diagnostics and data and is designed to provide individuals and their families the ability to securely test, track and respond to health risks, while enabling the scientific community to advance diagnostics and drug development at scale to create next-generation safeguards for global health. Driven by mounting evidence in support of cellular therapy and united in the belief that a person should be empowered to take control of his or her health, GoodCell is led by a founding team of science and technology innovators with a diverse set of medical research. Learn more at: www.goodcell.com.
