Today, cancer and other diseases are often caught too late for treatments to be effective. Can you imagine a world in which a single blood test could detect disease and enable earlier treatment?
Adela is creating that world.
Developed based on epigenetic research at UHN's Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and incubated and de-risked at UHN, Adela’s mission is to develop innovative, accessible technologies that harness biology and change the way we detect and treat many diseases – beginning with cancer.
Adela’s platform is based on a specialized form of circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) technology, known as cfMeDIP-seq. Discovered at UHN, cfMeDIP-seq is an ultra-sensitive methylation pattern detection technology which, combined with AI, is designed to help detect cancer and other high-morbidity, high-mortality conditions through a single blood draw. This enables the potential for earlier disease detection, diagnosis and management.
cfMEDIP-seq is the basis of Adela's groundbreaking liquid biopsy technology that detects and analyzes the sequences and modifications made to fragments of DNA present in the blood – known as DNA methylation – that are often found in cancer cells. Paired with sophisticated machine learning algorithms, Adela’s genome-wide methylome enrichment platform is designed to efficiently mine millions of DNA methylation changes in the human body to detect cancer and other conditions.
Adela’s potential to speed the path to disease detection has been recognized – in medical publications and with the commitment of USD$60 million in one of Canada’s largest-ever Series A financing rounds, led by U.S.-based F-Prime Capital and backed by OrbiMed, Deerfield Management, Decheng Capital and RA Capital Management. This funding enables the groundbreaking start-up to achieve ambitious milestones in the advancement of precision-based, personalized medicine. In its most recent financing round, totalling USD$48 million, Adela is focusing on developing its multi-cancer early-detection platform and commercializing its tissue-agnostic measurable residual disease (MRD) product.
