THE Science
Our answer
THE NEED
finding early cancer when more cures are possible
When diagnosed early, cancer survival rates increase more than fourfold; yet, current tools detect few cancers and often only after the disease has progressed. Many of today’s tests are out of reach for most people.
What if we could test for numerous cancers at an early stage and use the results to prevent further tumor development and inform therapeutic interventions? What if that testing was accessible to everyone?
At Harbinger Health, we are bringing together unique insights into the biology of cancer’s origin with artificial intelligence and the latest genetic screening technologies to meet the challenge of finding cancer at its inception.
answers to cancer that matter
We are rewinding cancer’s trajectory back to the beginning. We have identified biological programs that are present in the earliest forms of cancer, before the development of tumors, before the onset of symptoms, before the cancer becomes a problem. Biological programs that link oncogenesis and developmental biology.
Up until now, the approach to early cancer detection has been to try to reverse engineer cancer – looking back from late-stage disease to see if the same genetic biomarkers are present in the very earliest tumors. However, while this approach is a significant advancement from decades ago, this conventional view of tumor development, a genetically divergent disease, relies on moving targets that are reflective of late-stage cancers.
It turns out that most cancers converge on one common epigenetic-based biological program.
Harbinger’s approach is rooted in this fundamental insight. We have identified biological programs derived from developmental biology that are present in the earliest cellular changes of cancer and are shared across most cancers – biological programs that signal the initiation of oncogenesis. We see cancer at the beginning, even before it takes hold.
Our biological insights tell us ‘where to look’, maximizing the signal to detect cancer before it develops. Using biology guided machine learning approaches, we can accurately predict where and how cancer will grow and provide clues to help inform when and where to treat it. This puts fear to rest. This is the answer before cancer becomes a problem.
THE Platform
the right tests for the right people at the right time
We’re developing proprietary solutions for the future of cancer pre-emption, a smarter approach to detection that starts with blood-based tests that enable the detection of early cancer.
Our platform – HarbingerHx – generates novel insights that will allow for constant learning and new discoveries to improve our ability to detect cancers at their earliest stages and then help inform a patient’s future health decisions. Unlike other screenings that rely on just sorting through massive quantities of genetic data, we’ve found a compass that points the needle to navigate through the noise and identify cancer where it hides.
The CORE of Early Cancer Detection
Together with the Sarah Cannon Research Institute (SCRI), we have initiated the Cancer ORigin Epigenetics- Harbinger Health (CORE-HH) study, which will enroll a diverse and representative population of up to 10,000 subjects with and without cancer at up to 150 sites across the U.S. This study will further develop and validate the diagnostic accuracy of our platform technology for the detection of early-stage cancer across multiple cancer types and to assess our ability to determine tumor location.
This study is a tremendous step toward bringing our platform to the broader population.