The private liquid biopsy developer Freenome has eschewed the multi-cancer path to focus instead on a very specific setting for its first blood test: screening for colorectal cancer.
But the readout of its vast trial in this setting has been delayed from this year to next, and in the meantime Guardant Health, an established liquid biopsy player, will report data from a very similar study of a rival test. Freenome is banking on its novel approach, looking at RNA and proteins as well as DNA, winning out in the clinic. It might be a harder task to win out in the market.