A computational pathology startup spun out from one of the largest cancer hospitals in the country has closed its second round of funding in less than two years.
New York-based Paige said Wednesday that it had closed a $45 million Series B round, led by Healthcare Venture Partners and with participation from Breyer Capital, Kenan Turnacioglu and others. The company plans to use the money to support Food and Drug Administration clearance of its products and expansion of its portfolio, which is focused on cancer pathology. It also plans to expand into Canada, Brazil and Europe.
Launched last year, Paige previously announced that it had closed a $25 million Series A funding round in February 2018. The company was spun off from research at New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center focused on applying machine learning to a library of pathology slides in order to advance oncology clinical decision support.
“This influx in funding reflects the acknowledgment and recognition that Paige’s technology is ready for prime time,” Paige CEO Leo Grady said in a statement, regarding the Series B round. “We believe that [artificial intelligence] will have a transformative impact on pathology and cancer care by improving pathology quality, throughput, costs and by enabling new biomarkers and diagnostics.”
In March, the FDA granted the company Breakthrough Device designation, which Paige said was the first for AI in cancer diagnosis that any company had publicly announced. The designation was created under the 21st Century Cures Act. And earlier this month, Paige signed a deal with Dutch electronics conglomerate Royal Philips to advance its AI technology in the clinic.
Several other companies have also been entering the digital pathology field and raising significant sums from venture capital firms. Last Month, PathAI, based in Boston, closed a $75 million Series B funding round that included investments from Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck & Co. The company’s technology is designed to help pathologists make rapid diagnoses for patients. Other companies include Deep Lens, based in Columbus, Ohio, which raised a $14 million Series A round, and Tel Aviv, Israel-based Nucleai.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
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