Seer, Inc., a life sciences and health data company focused on enabling early, pre-symptomatic detection of cancer, neurological and other serious diseases, today announced that Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, Director and Robert J. Margolis MD, Professor of Business, Medicine and Health Policy, and founding Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University, has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors. Dr. McClellan formerly served as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“We are honored to welcome Mark to our board,” said Omid Farokhzad, MD, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of Seer. “The promise of early, pre-symptomatic disease detection stands to radically transform the practice of medicine, with significant and far-reaching implications. Mark’s deep understanding of the health care ecosystem and visionary insights on policy reform will be crucial in informing our thinking as we work to bring our liquid biopsy and life sciences products to market.”
“I am enthusiastic about joining Seer’s board at this important juncture,” said Dr. McClellan. “The future of health care is increasingly about early and accurate detection of risks to health, coupled with effective therapies – and practical insights from the human proteome will be a critical part of this shift. Getting the most value from much more personalized diagnosis and treatment will require new approaches to care and payment. I look forward to working with Omid and the Seer team to plan and work comprehensively toward this exciting future.”
Seer also announced today that it has broadened its syndicate of investors and completed a $17.5 million Series C financing round. The company will use the proceeds to continue to advance its Proteograph™ platform and build its proteomic database, progress discovery programs for multiple indications, and develop first-in-class liquid biopsy products for early disease detection, with an initial focus on oncology and neurology. New investors Wing VC and Aju IB participated in the round, along with existing investors Maverick Ventures and Invus, and other institutional and private investors.
“We’re thrilled to welcome Wing VC and Aju IB on this exciting journey, and we’re grateful for the continued support and commitment of Maverick, Invus and our other investors,” said Dr. Farokhzad. “Our enduring vision is to provide proteomic information at scale. To that end, we’ve recently made significant advancements in our Proteograph platform, particularly with respect to speed, cost and protein coverage. We look forward to sharing our progress on multiple fronts in the coming months.”
Seer is focused on capturing and translating molecular insights from the proteome to enable early detection of cancer and neurological diseases and drive earlier treatment to improve patient outcomes. The company’s core technology, the Proteograph platform, is designed to provide rapid, cost-effective, and broad-scale proteomic profiling with high accuracy and precision. Seer then applies machine learning algorithms to analyze the resulting high volume of proteomic data and generate population-level disease insights, which it is utilizing to develop first-in-class liquid biopsy products to detect diseases at early, pre-symptomatic stages.
About Dr. McClellan
Dr. McClellan is a physician and an economist who has informed and improved a wide range of strategies and policy reforms to advance health care, including payment reform to promote better outcomes and lower costs, methods for development and use of real-world evidence, and strategies for more effective biomedical innovation. Prior to assuming his current role at Duke, Dr. McClellan served as a Senior Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he was Director of the Health Care Innovation and Value Initiatives and led the Richard Merkin Initiative on Payment Reform and Clinical Leadership.
Dr. McClellan is a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and former commissioner of FDA, where he developed and implemented major reforms in health policy. He had previously served as a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, senior director for health care policy at the White House, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Department of the Treasury.
Dr. McClellan is the founding chair and a current board member of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA and a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), where he chairs the Leadership Council for Value and Science-Driven Health care, co-chairs the guiding committee of the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is also a Senior Advisor on the faculty of the University of Texas Dell Medical School, co-chair of the Accountable Care Learning Collaborative, and a member of the Healthtech 4 Medicaid Board of Directors. Dr. McClellan was previously an associate professor of economics and medicine with tenure at Stanford University, and has twice received the Kenneth Arrow Award for Outstanding Research in Health Economics. In addition to serving on Seer’s board, Dr. McClellan is also an independent director on the boards of Johnson & Johnson, Cigna and Alignment Healthcare.
About Seer, Inc.
Seer is a life sciences and health data company focused on capturing and translating molecular insights from the proteome to enable early, pre-symptomatic detection of cancer and neurological diseases, drive earlier treatment, and improve patient outcomes. Based in South San Francisco, CA, Seer’s novel Proteograph™ platform allows for the first-ever generation of proprietary proteomic information with high accuracy at a scale and speed not previously possible, complementing genomic and other health information, and affording comprehensive insights to deliver first-in-class liquid biopsy products with a goal of achieving very early disease detection. For more information, visit us at www.seer.bio or follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter.
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