Cancer diagnostics startup GeneCentric Diagnostics, led by former LabCorp (NYSE:LH) executive Dr. Myla Lai-Goldman, has raised $250,000, securities filings show.
Besides Lai-Goldman, GeneCentric’s CEO, the filing lists only Dr. Neil Hayes, a professor at the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Lai-Goldman could not be reached for comment. But the website of venture capital firm Hatteras Venture Partners, where Lai-Goldman is a venture partner, notes that Lai-Goldman co-founded GeneCentric this year with Hayes and Dr. Chuck Perou, also a professor at UNC’s medical school. Durham, North Carolina-based GeneCentric was formed in June, according to records kept by the the North Carolina Secretary of State.
GeneCentric looks like it’s working in the emerging space of personalized medicine. Hatteras describes GeneCentric as a company focused on developing and commercializing novel molecular diagnostic tests for oncologists and patients to make “informed, individualized treatment decisions.”
Perou and Hayes are already working together on genomic cancer research. The two are leading a team of UNC researchers supported by a Cancer Genome Atlas Grant. In August, UNC was named as one of 12 research centers participating in the effort to characterize the genomic changes that occur in cancer. UNC could receive up to $20 million from the five-year grant.
Lai-Goldman retired from LabCorp at the end of 2008 as the company’s executive vice president and chief medical officer. She had also previously served as chief scientific officer of the company overseeing LabCorp’s R&D.
In 2009, Lai-Goldman founded and become managing partner of Personalized Science, a consulting company focused on diagnostics. Lai-Goldman also co-founded CancerGuide Diagnostics, a Durham company developing cancer tests. In 2010, CancerGuide secured $10.5 million in funding led by Hatteras Venture Partners and Intersouth Partners.
