Israeli startup OncoHost announced today an upsized and oversubscribed $35 million Series C funding round, led by ALIVE Israel HealthTech VC, with the participation of Leumi Partners, Menora Mivtachim, OurCrowd and other existing investors. Clinical trial results have shown OncoHost's AI-powered precision oncology platform to have remarkably high accuracy in assessing non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient response at three months, six months and one year. Through one blood test pre-treatment, the company's multi-patented platform also provides clinicians with potential combination strategies to overcome treatment resistance. Last year, OncoHost CEO Dr. Ofer Sharon told me that "For immunotherapy, the most important treatment modality we have today, the response rate on average across all cancer types is about 20%. With all the promise of immunotherapy, if you have ten patients waiting in your waiting room with advanced cancer, only two will be alive in two years."

Mayo Clinic's Center for Individualized Medicine and genomic sequencing specialist Tempus announced a collaboration to provide personalized treatment for cancer patients based on analytics and machine learning technologies. As part of two research projects, Mayo will tap Tempus for molecular sequencing and analysis of some 1,000 patients, spanning bladder, breast, melanoma and lung cancers. Physicians and patients, while participating in a research study, will have access to clinically actionable genomic results that guide therapy. Tempus' bioinformatics analytics and machine learning tools will generate data that Mayo Clinic's research teams can use to better understand biomarkers that novel therapeutics can be applied to treat. "The goals of both research projects are to improve patient quality of life by limiting exposure to ineffective agents, decreasing unnecessary toxicity and, most importantly, to improve survival by allowing for more individualized cancer therapy," Mayo Clinic oncology research chair Minetta Liu, MD said in a statement.