Personalis

Personalis is a biotechnology company focused on offering genomic sequencing and analytics solutions to support biomarker discovery and advance precision oncology therapies, including cancer vaccines and immunotherapies. Personalis offers a suite of products powered by its NeXT platform for comprehensive tumor and immune profiling from tissue or blood samples. The company claims its NeXT platform is the first to provide biopharma companies with information on all of the approximately 20,000 human genes compared to many cancer panels that cover only between 50 to 500 genes. NeXT is designed to provide analysis of both a tumor and its immune microenvironment from a single tissue sample. 

The company’s suite of products includes ImmunoID NeXT (tumor profiling from tissue samples), NeXT Liquid Biopsy (tumor profiling from plasma), NeXT Dx (genomic cancer profiling that enables biomarker discovery), NeXT SHERPA (identifies and characterizes cancer neoantigen or tumor-specific antigens), and NeXT NEOPS (identifies predictive biomarkers). In addition, the company has several tests in its development pipeline, including NeXT Personal (a liquid biopsy offering for personalized tumor tracking), NeXT CDx (companion diagnostic testing), and NeXT Database (tumor immune-genomics database). 

In November 2023, Personalis entered a partnership with genetic testing and bioinformatics company Tempus Labs to collaboratively commercialize Personalis' NeXT Personal Dx Minimal Residual Disease (MRD) assay, which enables personalized ctDNA panels of up to 1,800 variants with a resolution of around one part per million. The companies intended to initially focus on MRD testing in lung cancer.

Key customers and partnerships  

Personalis collaborates with several pharmaceutical companies including Merck, Sarepta Therapeutics, Natera, Moderna , National Cancer Center Hospital East and Ono Pharmaceutical , and AstraZeneca to offer its next-generation sequencing capabilities. In Q3 2022, the company was awarded two research contracts including BC Cancer, and was awarded a five year contract with US Department of Veterans Affairs Million Veterans Program (VA MVP).

Funding and Financials 

In January 2022, the company entered into an at-the-market sales agreement with BTIG, a New York-based investment bank, to sell up to an aggregate of USD 100 million of its common shares. The funds were directed toward working capital and general corporate requirements, including research and development programs, vendor payables, hiring more staff, and capital expenditures. 

For the year 2022 , the firm's net losses increased by 74% YoY to USD 82 million due to a decline in revenue of 24% YoY, mainly attributable to the completion of all its outstanding task orders from the VA MVP, and an increase in operating expenses. For 2023, Personalis increased its revenue expectations in the range of USD 68–72 million, implying an increase of 5%–11% while projecting a net loss of USD 103 million, down from USD 113 million in 2022 due to savings from layoffs.