Computational pathology service platform developer 3Scan said today it raised $14 million in a Series B round of financing to support the expansion of its pre-clinical drug discovery capabilities and to build out its image processing and analysis software.
The round was led by existing investors Lux Capital and Data collective and joined by prior backer Dolby Family Ventures and new investors OS Fund, Comet Labs and Breakout Ventures.
“In the last 150 years, very little has changed in the tools available to pathologists and researchers who examine tissue. We are working on demonstrating the importance of comprehensive 3D spatial mapping of tissue samples. 3Scan has already secured service contracts with several large pharma companies in order to help them image and refine drug delivery to solid tumor cancers in mice (where drugs are often tested before entering clinical trials and being tested in humans). We are extremely excited to continue working with Lux Capital and DCVC to fulfill our shared vision of the future of pathology and are emboldened by the support of our excellent new and existing investors,” CEO & co-founder Todd Huffman said in a press release.
The company said its platform uses precision robotics to allow for the sectioning of entire blocks of tissue, including whole organs, to eliminate the need for less accurate sampling during the examination of diseased and healthy tissue.
“DCVC is fully committed to 3Scan because we believe they can simultaneously save lives and money, in both the multi-billion-dollar pharma and clinical care markets. 3Scan is delivering high-precision, cell-to-organ insight through a 3D pathology robotics platform with equivalent output to thousands of human histologists, all in a hardware footprint smaller than a Tesla. 3Scan’s technology will help unify pathology data with molecular biology insights to solve previously impossible translational medicine problems. When we first invested in 3Scan, our conversations with top 20 research hospitals and pharma companies characterized it as a ‘must have’. Now those people are active 3Scan customers, and recommending the platform to their peers,” Data Collective co-managing partner & co-founder Matthew Ocko, who is slated to join 3Scan’s board, said in a prepared statement.
“We at Lux are excited to double down with the 3Scan team. They have exceeded our expectations, doubled in size, and attracted high caliber partnerships. The exquisitely engineered technology they have designed and delivered is quite literally trailblazing, on the cutting edge of computational pathology,” Lux Capital managing director Josh Wolfe said in prepared remarks.
“3Scan’s automated histology platform fills the gap between radiology and pathology by allowing large-volume high-throughput imaging of tissue and tissue scale diseases. This type of imaging technology is essential if ever want to be able to use the power of modern computing to improve pathology outcomes,” 3Scan COO Megan Klimen said in a prepared release.
