Temasek unit-backed firm Lucence to tap Hong Kong cancer screening market
- Expansion in Hong Kong will see Lucence compete with companies such as Sanomics and Prenetics
- Singapore-based company has raised US$9.2 million in seed capital and is looking to raise another US$10 million or more
Lucence Diagnostics, a Singapore-based cancer screening and DNA testing company backed by a private equity unit of sovereign fund Temasek Holdings, is considering setting up a laboratory in Hong Kong to better compete in the liquid biopsy market.
The company, set up in 2016, last year launched what it billed as globally the first liquid biopsy test that can detect gene mutations and viruses associated with 14 cancers most common in Asia.
The Lucence test costs more than US$1,000, which founder and chief executive Tan Min Han said represents just 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the cost of a tissue biopsy.
Tan said the company had undertaken several thousand cancer screenings and DNA tests since its inception, of which about 1,000 originated in Hong Kong and were sent to its lab in Singapore. It will take Lucence six months to decide whether to work with, or acquire a lab in Hong Kong, with the Science Park a potential venue, he added.
Lucence’s expansion in Hong Kong will see it compete with companies such as Sanomics, a Hong Kong Science Park-based firm backed by Shenzhen-listed Berry Genomics, which said it has processed more than 7,000 cases in 20 countries and regions. Lucence’s hereditary genetic mutation test will also compete with Prenetics, the first Hong Kong company to take a genetics test kit for cancer risks directly to consumers.
Over the next five years, Lucence will conduct a clinical study with 100,000 participants across Asia to validate a new blood test it is developing to screen for several types of cancers in their early stages.