Culmination Bio Partners with BillionToOne to Drive Diagnostic Solutions in Oncology

Culmination Bio, a data and technology company combining clinical and biospecimen data, announced a partnership with BillionToOne, Inc., a next-generation molecular diagnostics company with a mission to create powerful and accurate tests that are accessible to all. Culmination Bio and BillionToOne are working together to leverage their respective strengths in order to facilitate the development and validation of robust and impactful oncology diagnostics.

Leveraging Culmination Bio’s Data Lake and patient recruitment capabilities to help BillionToOne validate two diagnostic tests: Northstar Select™, an ultra-sensitive, NGS-based liquid biopsy test that provides insight into what therapies may be appropriate for patients with stage III/IV cancer, and Northstar Response™, a tissue-free, NGS-based treatment response monitoring assay that evaluates more than 500 genomic loci uniquely methylated in cancer. This test precisely quantifies changes in the amount of methylated ctDNA of patients on cancer treatments to inform treatment efficacy in terms of progression, response, or stable disease.

BillionToOne is developing these diagnostics to address the challenges associated with accurately profiling cancer to aid in determining the best treatment and then monitoring the response to said treatment, a critical factor in determining the effectiveness of cancer treatment. The validation process involves leveraging Culmination Bio’s extensive patient base to establish the clinical performance of these novel assays by comparing blinded assay results to known patient outcomes.

“Our partnership with BillionToOne demonstrates our commitment to advancing healthcare in support of innovative diagnostic solutions”, said Mark Oldroyd, Chief Commercial Officer of Culmination Bio. ”By providing access to our research-focused, biospecimen-based data, we’re not only accelerating novel scientific development but paving the way for improving diagnostics which promise to transform oncology care”

This collaboration comprises two separate projects, each highly valuable to advancing the development of these diagnostics and making it possible for future regulatory submissions. The first project of 100 patients, launched in early fall, has already seen significant progress, with 60 patient samples collected, many that involve rare mutations, to date. This rapid accumulation of patient data highlights the effectiveness of the partnership in expediting research efforts.

This news comes on the heels of Culmination Bio’s $10M investment from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (Merck GHIF) and Amgen Ventures, along with the recent announcement of the company’s multi-year R&D partnership with Merck to study autoimmune diseases.

For more information about the partnership, visit culmination.com.

About Culmination Bio:
Culmination Bio is changing the world by discovering better health. We provide unparalleled value to healthcare organizations by unlocking biological data and enriching it with clinical, claims, and genomic data. We are on a journey to radically improve everyone’s future healthcare experience. Culmination Bio will become the trusted source for healthcare insights and generating discoveries that improve people’s lives.

About BillionToOne:
Headquartered in Menlo Park, California, BillionToOne is a precision diagnostics company on a mission to make molecular diagnostics more accurate, efficient, and accessible for everyone. The company’s patented Quantitative Counting Technology™ (QCT™) molecular counting platform is the only multiplex technology that can accurately count DNA molecules at the single-molecule level.

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Melissa Mowery

PR for Culmination Bio

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