Grail

Grail is an American startup developing tests for early detection of cancer. The essence of the technology being developed in the company is to find cancer in the blood before the symptoms of the disease appear. The same idea underpins a liquid biopsy, the use of blood samples to obtain genetic information about how tumor cells respond to a particular therapy.

Early Cancer Diagnosis Systems Developer Grail Sells for $8 Billion

Grail is a developer of systems for early cancer diagnosis. The company spun off from Illumina in 2016 and used NGS technology to machine learn and create early diagnosis tests for a variety of cancers. The company raised about $2 billion to develop its platform and the Galleri screening test, which is scheduled to launch commercially in 2021.

History

2020: Illumina buys Grail for $8bn

At the end of September 2020, Illumina announced the acquisition of Grail, which had previously separated from it. In accordance with the agreement, Grail shareholders will receive a total consideration of $8 billion, of which $3.5 billion will come from the buyer's own funds, and $4.5 billion will be provided in the form of Illumina shares on bail. Illumina currently owns 14.5% of Grail's issued shares, according to a press release.

The share price cap ensures that Grail shareholders will eventually receive Illumina shares for the agreed amount. After the deal closes in the second half of 2021, Illumina's current shareholders are expected to own approximately 93% of the combined company and Grail's shareholders will own the remaining 7%.

Illumina bought the developer of systems for early diagnosis of cancer Grail for $8 billion

To pay cash remuneration to Grail shareholders, lIllumina and Grail will provide their savings, as well as up to $1 billion raised when issuing debt or shares. Grail shareholders will also be entitled to receive payments in the future annually for 12 years, representing a certain share of Grail's income. Illumina expects the deal to start generating revenue as early as 2021.

Over the past four years, the Grail team has made exceptional progress in developing the technologies and algorithms for processing clinical data necessary to launch the Galleri screening test for many types of cancer, said Francis deSouza, President and CEO of Illumina[1]

2017: Search for investments after raising $900 million

At the end of October 2017, it became known about Grail's intentions to attract regular investments. The company is actively raising money to commercialize proactive cancer blood test technology.

In March 2017, several large pharmacology companies, as well as Amazon and Google, invested in Grail. Then the startup managed to raise $900 million, which at that time was the highest amount of collection in the medical diagnostics market. In 2016, the company raised $100 million.

Early Cancer Detection Test Developer Grail Raises $900M, Seeks New Investment

On October 31, 2017, CNBC, citing its own sources, reported on Grail's search for new investments. The company is in talks with Japanese telecommunications giant SoftBank and UAE sovereign wealth fund Mubadala, which is worth $125 billion.

Grail will first direct part of the funds raised to a mass clinical study of breast cancer, during which it is planned to take a blood test from 120 thousand women in different countries.

Earlier in 2017, Grail acquired for $100 million the Chinese company Cirina, which creates commercial tests to detect nasopharyngeal carcinoma (a type of cancer).  

Grail expects to release a ready-to-use product by 2019. Before that, the company must solve two main problems that hinder the development of technologies for early detection of cancer: high cost and a large percentage of false results.^[2]

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