BostInno
BostonGene Has Big Plans for Treating Cancer With Precision Medicine
By: Rowan Walrath
With $50 million in its pocket, biomedical software startup BostonGene is refreshed and ready to take on the world of cancer treatment.
The goal is to help physicians prescribe the right treatments for individual patients based on its cloud-based information and analytics software.
As Andrew Feinberg, BostonGene’s president and CEO, explains it, the company’s software essentially sequences both DNA and RNA through a patented process, allowing physicians to understand information about not only the cancerous cells but also the macro-environment in which they exist.
“Now that we understand enough of the tumor and enough of the immune system, we’re able to run very sophisticated algorithms and analytics to correlate those two and come up with the molecular profile of the patient,” Feinberg said. “Then we say, ‘Given all of that, here’s the treatment that is very, very likely to work.’”
Last month, BostonGene got an infusion of cash from Tokyo-based IT company NEC Corporation, its only outside investor so far. (Feinberg is also president and CEO of Netcracker, an NEC subsidiary.) The $50 million in Series A funding will allow the startup, which has been around since 2015, to work on its long-term strategy and expand both its team and its collaborative efforts. Feinberg told me BostonGene has already worked with oncologists in the area.
BostonGene is not the only Boston-area startup working in this space. Navya, which works out of the Cambridge Innovation Center, has developed its own machine-learning solution to help cancer patients and physicians figure out the right treatment. Its software combines medical literature, international guidelines, and learned experience to develop a recommendation report for oncologists to review.
Working in cancer treatment means that BostonGene can be on the “cutting edge,” Feinberg said. “With cancer and immunotherapy, and the different innovative treatments [that accompany them], that’s where everybody is focused today. New opportunities and new treatments come into the market every single day.”
In 2016, cancer was the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. and the third-leading cause of disease burden, according to the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker. The U.S. has lower mortality rates for cancer patients than any other OECD country, but the cost burden can be high for individuals: Average health spending, including insurer claims and out-of-pocket costs, for people who had ever had a cancer diagnosis was $11,516 in 2013, compared to an average of $4,411 who had never been diagnosed with cancer. Feinberg thinks that BostonGene’s software, which is designed to allow oncologists to prescribe more targeted treatments, could lower that financial burden over time.
When I asked Feinberg whether BostonGene planned to expand beyond cancer, to address other diseases that were linked to immunodeficiencies, he deflected.
“It’s not our first priority,” he said. He noted that his company’s software could be applicable to other diseases; in the next couple of years, BostonGene could potentially explore those applications as market opportunities.
Right now, though, the medium-term strategy is to take its software as a service outside the borders of the U.S.—and continue to focus on cancer.
“Cancer, unfortunately, is a truly global global disease, and it needs to be fought everywhere,” Feinberg said.
