Novalis Biotech Invests in Ultra Sensitive Genomics Technology by Rarity Bioscience

Rarity Bioscience announces a new strategic investment from Belgium-based Novalis Biotech. The investment is facilitated as an oversubscription of the recent round closed in November 2022. Apart from previous owner, that round also included Wallenberg Investments through Navigare Venture, now bringing the total investment round to €3M.

Novalis Biotech is an early-stage venture capital investor in technologies that revolutionise healthcare. The fund’s core competence lies in digitalization in the life sciences with a focus on “enabling technologies” within research and manufacturing technologies, genomics, bioinformatics, diagnostics, and personalised medicine. The Rarity superRCA technology is a new method for mutation detection from liquid biopsies, published in Nature Communications. The technology demonstrates superior sensitivity that enables earlier detection of cancer relapse, potentially leading to earlier treatment. Compared to competing methods, the superRCA assays are analyzed using existing lab instruments, which reduces both the costs and adoption barriers for labs.

“Rarity Bioscience impressed us with an exceptional team and pedigree of the founders. We share the company’s vision of deploying the elegant superRCA technology in emerging liquid biopsy applications across various oncology indications and beyond. We believe the combination of the technology’s unprecedented sensitivity and compatibility with widely available instrument infrastructure and workflows, will position the company to become a highly differentiated player in molecular diagnostics,” said Wim Van Criekinge, Co-founder & Managing Director Novalis Biotech.

Rarity Bioscience was founded in 2021 as a spin out from Uppsala University to further develop and commercialize the superRCA assay technology, based on a discovery by Dr Lei Chen, PhD in molecular biology and a member of Professor Ulf Landegrens team at the Department of Immunology, Genomics and Pathology. Rarity superRCA is an ultrasensitive multiplex assay for detecting rare nucleic acid sequences in biological samples, enabling full potential of liquid biopsies and radically improving cancer diagnostics.

“Novalis came in late in the funding process, but I realized immediately that it was a very good fit. Working with Jaroslav Belotserkovsky and Wim Van Criekinge at Novalis during the late fall further confirmed that notion and I was very pleased when we landed the agreement to oversubscribe the round and bring them in at this stage. Novalis to me does not only have a great network and other interesting investments in the field, but also a deep scientific understanding and passion that holds a lot of value to us,” said Linus Bosaeus, CEO Rarity Bioscience.