SomaLogic to use $162M investment to create diagnostic health test
BOULDER — SomaLogic, a diagnostics company that analyzes individual protein information rather than genomes, is using a $162 million investment to bring its complete diagnostic exam commercially available.
The Boulder-based biotech company filed a Form D with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for more than $162,927,000, with $161 million coming from the investment of Chinese company iCarbonX in May.
The iCarbonX investment gives SomaLogic the runway it needs to bring its diagnostic exam, SomaScan, to customers, said Fintan Steele, SomaLogic’s chief of corporate communications and culture.
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SomaLogic is a proteomics company, which means it studies the thousands of proteins that are in the blood system and use them to draw insights on a person’s health.
Steel likened what many personal health companies are studying — genetics and DNA — to the body what a blueprint is to a building or vehicle.
“If you look at an older building’s blueprints, you’re not going to see the wear-and-tear, the leaky pipes, all those things that matter,” Steele said. “Same with cars, there are sensors that come on and say something is not quite right. You can look at the car’s wiring diagram and not have an idea, you need the sensors to say something is wrong with the parts. What’s the equivalent in humans is the molecules that make us up, and those are proteins.”
By studying and analyzing proteins, SomaLogic is able to identify what is going on in a body in real-time.
Anything from a high-fat diet, adding a fitness regimen or developing cancer cells can show changes to proteins in the blood system. Studying those changes can show where a patient is today and where they are headed.
It’s taken 10 years, starting in 2000, for founder Larry Gold, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Colorado Boulder, to develop the technology to analyze the proteins.
Once it was developed, Steele said, the company was leasing the technology to other firms as a way to generate capital and develop the diagnostic tests that would use the technology.
But through the iCarbonX investment, SomaLogic will be able to collect and analyze enough blood samples to finish creating a complete-health diagnostic test and make it commercially available.
Already, SomaLogic has studied 125,000 samples used to identify between 40 and 50 diseases. The company is building satellite labs in Oxford, England, and China that will be functional in the next six to 12 months.
The hope, Steele said, is that in the next five years or so, a person could take a SomaScan, — either through their doctor or even at home — that could provide proactive information about their present and future health.
“It’s really personalized medicine,” Steele said. “There’s nothing more personalized than proteins; even the genome is not. This is what drives how one manages one’s health. You give people the information they need to actively maintain wellness and a high quality of life as long as possible. It’s all reflected in the proteins. This empowers you to manage your own health and well being.”
