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Billionaire Eric Lefkofsky’s Tempus Raises $200 Million To Bring Personalized Medicine To New Diseases

On the surface, Eric Lefkofsky’s Tempus sounds much like every other AI-powered personalized medicine company. “We try to infuse as much data and technology as we can into the diagnosis itself,” Lefkofsky says, which could be said by the founder of any number of new healthcare companies.. But what makes Tempus different is that it is quickly branching out, moving from a focus on cancer to additional programs including mental health, infectious diseases, cardiology and soon diabetes. “We’re focused on those disease areas that are the most deadly,” Lefkofsky says. 

Now, the billionaire founder has an additional $200 million to reach that goal. The Chicago-based company announced the series G-2 round on Thursday, which includes a massive valuation of $8.1 billion. Lefkofsky, the founder of multiple companies including Groupon, also saw his net worth rise from the financing, from an estimated $3.2 billion to an estimated $4.2 billion.

Tempus is “trying to disrupt a very large industry that is very complex,” Lefkofsky says, “we’ve known it was going to cost a lot of money to see our business model to fruition.” 

In addition to investors Baillie Gifford, Franklin Templeton, Novo Holdings, and funds managed by T. Rowe Price, Lefkofsky, who has invested about $100 million of his own money into the company since inception, also contributed an undisclosed amount to the round. Google also participated as an investor, and Tempus says it will now store its deidentified patient data on Google Cloud. 

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“We are particularly attracted to companies that aim to solve fundamental and complex challenges within life sciences,” says Robert Ghenchev, a senior partner at Novo Holdings. “Tempus is, in many respects, the poster child for the kind of companies we like to support.” 

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Tempus, founded by Lefkofsky in 2015, is one of a new breed of personalized cancer diagnostic companies like Foundation Medicine and Guardant Health. The company’s main source of revenue comes from sequencing the genome of cancer patients’ tumors in order to help doctors decide which treatments would be most effective. “We generate a lot of molecular data about you as a patient,” Lefkofsky says. He estimates that Tempus has the data of about 1 in 3 cancer patients in the United States. 

But billing insurance companies for sequencing isn’t the only way the company makes money. Tempus also offers a service that matches eligible patients to clinical trials, and it licenses  de-identified patient data to other players in the oncology industry. That patient data, which includes images and clinical information, is “super important and valuable,” says Lefkofsky, who adds that such data sharing only occurs if patients consent. 

At first glance, precision oncology seems like a crowded market, but analysts say there is still plenty of room for companies to grow. “We’re just getting started in this market,” says Puneet Souda, a senior research analyst at SVB Leerink, “[and] what comes next is even larger.” Souda estimates that as the personalized oncology market expands from diagnostics to screening, another $30 billion or more will be available for companies to snatch up. And Tempus is already thinking ahead by moving into new therapeutic areas. 

While it’s not leaving cancer behind, Tempus has branched into other areas of precision medicine over the last year, including cardiology and mental health. The company now offers a service for psychiatrists to use a patient’s genetic information to determine the best treatments for major depressive disorder. 

In May, Lefkofsky also pushed the company to use its expertise to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The company now offers PCR tests for Covid-19, and has run over 1 million so far. The company also sequences other respiratory pathogens, such as the flu and soon pneumonia. As with cancer, Tempus will continue to make patient data accessible for others in the field— for a price. “Because we have one of the largest repositories of data in the world,” says Lefkofsky, “[it is imperative] that we make it available to anyone.” 

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Lefkofsky plans to use capital from the latest funding round to continue Tempus’ expansion and grow its team. The company has hired about 700 since the start of the pandemic, he says, and currently has about 1,800 employees. He wouldn’t comment on exact figures, but while the company is not yet profitable he says Tempus has reached “significant scale in terms of revenue.” 

And why is he so sure that his company’s massive valuation isn’t over-inflated? “We benefit from two really exciting financial sector trends,” he says: complex genomic profiling and AI-driven health data. Right now, Lefkofsky estimates, about one-third of cancer patients have their tumors sequenced in three years. Soon, he says, that number will increase to two-thirds of patients getting their tumors sequenced multiple times a year. “The space itself is very exciting,” he says, “we think it will grow dramatically.” Follow me on Twitter. Send me a secure tip. 

Leah Rosenbaum

Leah Rosenbaum

I am the assistant editor of healthcare and science at Forbes. I graduated from UC Berkeley with a Master’s of Journalism and a Master’s of Public Health, with a specialty in infectious disease. Before that, I was at Johns Hopkins University where I double-majored in writing and public health. I’ve written articles for STAT, Vice, Science News, HealthNewsReview and other publications. At Forbes, I cover all aspects of health, from disease outbreaks to biotech startups.

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Eric Lefkofsky

To impact the nearly 1.7 million Americans who will be newly diagnosed with cancer this year, Eric Lefkofsky, co-founder and CEO of Tempus, discusses with Matter CEO Steven Collens how he is applying his disruptive-technology expertise to create an operating system to battle cancer. (November 29, 2016)

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Covid Vaccine Frontrunner Moderna Says Vaccine Won’t Be Approved Until Spring 2021

Pharmaceutical company Moderna, one of the companies in the lead pack in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine, won’t be in a position to widely distribute it until at least next spring, CEO Stéphane Bancel told the Financial Times, echoing public health experts who predict a similar timeline for other vaccine candidates.

Key Facts

“November 25 is the time we will have enough safety data to be able to put into an emergency use authorization file that we would send to the FDA,” Bancel said, adding that an approval wouldn’t be expected until late first quarter or early second quarter of 2021.

The timeline matches up with what public health experts have previously laid out, which is that a vaccine could be found to be safe and effective by the end of the year at the earliest but widespread distribution wouldn’t occur until further into 2021.

One of the frontrunners to develop a safe vaccine first, Moderna earlier in the month said it was slowing its trial enrollment to ensure it was representing disproportionately affected minority groups but later added it could have enough data by November to know if its vaccine candidate works.

The comments follow Trump’s claim during Tuesday’s U.S. presidential debate that, “We’re weeks away from a vaccine,” citing Moderna as well as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

Pfizer is another frontrunner—Johnson & Johnson are further behind their late-stage clinical trials—and while its CEO Albert Bourla said it will have an “answer” by the end of October on its candidate’s efficacy, a spokesperson for the company later told the New York Times that Pfizer wouldn’t be close to the completion of its clinical trial by then.

There are currently 11 vaccines in expansive Phase 3 clinical trials, according to data from the Times.

Chief Critic

Trump has pushed the notion that a vaccine will be ready before the November election, fueling fear in the U.S. that anything approved could have been rushed. Even with wide distribution of a vaccine, the upwards of 60% to 70% will need to be immunized to put an end to the pandemic. That could take until 2022, according to billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates and Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief science officer.

Key Background

A Covid-19 vaccine is being developed at an unprecedented speed, with a typical immunization taking 10 years to develop, test, approve and distribute. The U.S. leads the world in confirmed cases of the coronavirus with 7,221,278, as well as reported deaths with 206,693. In total, there are 33,802,841 global infections and 1,010,477 deaths.

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Matt Perez

Matt Perez

I cover breaking news and also report on the video game industry. I previously wrote for sites like IGN, Polygon, Red Bull eSports, Kill Screen, Playboy and PC Gamer. I also managed a YouTube gaming channel under the name strummerdood. I graduated with a BA in journalism from Rowan University and interned at Philadelphia Magazine. You can follow me on Twitter @mattryanperez.

Affordable Steroids Could Reduce Some COVID-19 Deaths by One-Third, Says World Health Organization

You’d think a robust immune system would be an awfully good thing to have if you’re battling COVID-19—and much of the time it is. But in the most extreme cases—the ones the World Health Organization (WHO) labels as “severe and critical,” denoting the most extremely ill, typically hospitalized patients, with the highest risk of death—the system meant to protect the body from disease can make things worse, leading to inflammation and other damage to the lungs, which in turn can result in an often fatal case of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

In June, a single large study of more than 6,200 patients found that corticosteroids, a class of drugs that reduce inflammation, could prevent at least some cases of coronavirus-related ARDS and the resulting deaths. Today, the WHO confirmed that preliminary report, announcing a new policy, based on a study published in JAMA, calling for the administration of steroids to all patients in the “severe and critical” category, based on findings that the treatment could reduce mortality by slightly more than one third.

The new conclusions were reached through a meta-analysis of seven different studies, each exploring the efficacy of corticosteroids in the most serious cases of COVID-19. The combined sample group from all seven studies included 1,703 severely ill patients, 678 of whom were administered steroids and 1,025 who received ordinary care (which did not include steroids) or a placebo. All of the patients were hospitalized and most were on ventilators. Over the course of 28 days, the death rate was 34% lower among the steroid-treated patients than among those in the control group.

“The consistent findings of benefit in these studies provide definitive data that corticosteroids should be first-line treatment for critically ill patients with COVID-19,” wrote Dr. Hallie Prescott, professor of medicine at the University of Michigan, and Dr. Todd Rice, professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University, in a JAMA editorial that accompanied the publication of the study.

Inside Barcelona’s Unfinished Masterpiece

The findings come with limitations. Steroids should not be used prophylactically in people with less serious cases of COVID-19, since the very suppression of immune system action that helps prevent or treat ARDS would only worsen the condition of people whose immune systems are functioning as they should, battling the virus without damaging the lungs. WHO also warned against “indiscriminate use” of any anti-COVID-19 therapeutic, including steroids, for fear of creating global shortages.

One new therapy that is 34% effective against one subset of cases of a disease that has sickened nearly 26 million people worldwide is not yet the stuff of victory parades. But in the grinding war against COVID-19, it is an undeniable victory in one important battle.

By Jeffrey Kluger

Dr. Steven O’Day talks about treating COVID-19 with the steroid Dexamethasone. As seen on the NBC4 News at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, June 16, 2020. ——— Don’t miss an NBCLA video, subscribe here: https://bit.ly/2NnofFF For more, visit NBCLA.COM here: https://bit.ly/2uB6niE On Facebook: https://bit.ly/2uFU1px On Twitter: https://bit.ly/2JsBm5Y About NBCLA The West Coast flagship station of the NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations, serving the vast region since 1949. NBC4 produces 43 hours each week of local news and weather, and the station features the largest award-winning investigative unit in Southern California. NBC4’s news operation has received nearly every industry award bestowed on local news, including numerous Los Angeles Emmy and Golden Mike Awards, two national and two regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, and a Peabody Award. NBC4 news is delivered across the main broadcast on channel4, at http://www.nbcla.com, and through multiple interactive social media platforms 24/7. The NBC Owned Television Stations, a division of NBCUniversal, also operates COZI TV (www.cozitv.com), a national network that brings viewers some of America’s most beloved and iconic television shows and movies. #NBC#NBCLA

Painkillers Like Paracetamol Should Not Be Prescribed For Chronic Pain

US-HEALTH-OPIOID-OXYCODON-ILLUSTRATION

Painkillers such as paracetamol, ibuprofen, aspirin and opioids can do “more harm than good” and should not be prescribed to treat chronic pain, health officials have said.

Draft guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) said that there was “little or no evidence” the commonly used drugs for chronic primary pain made any difference to people’s quality of life, pain or psychological distress.

But the draft guidance, published on Monday, said there was evidence they can cause harm, including addiction.

Chairman of the guidance committee Nick Kosky said that, while patients expected a clear diagnosis and effective treatment, the complexity of the condition means GPs and specialists can find it very “challenging” to manage.

The consultant psychiatrist at Dorset HealthCare NHS University Foundation Trust added: “This mismatch between patient expectations and treatment outcomes can affect the relationship between healthcare professionals and patients, a possible consequence of which is the prescribing of ineffective but harmful drugs.

“This guideline, by fostering a clearer understanding of the evidence for the effectiveness of chronic pain treatments, will help to improve the confidence of healthcare professionals in their conversations with patients.

“In doing so it will help them better manage both their own and their patients’ expectations.”

Chronic primary pain is a condition in itself which cannot be accounted for by another diagnosis or as a symptom of an underlying condition, Nice said.

It is characterized by significant emotional distress and functional disability with examples including chronic widespread pain and chronic musculoskeletal pain, it added.

Nice said an estimated third to half of the population may be affected by chronic pain while almost half of people with the condition have a diagnosis of depression and two-thirds are unable to work because of it.

The draft guidance, which is open to public consultation until August 14, said that people with the condition should be offered supervised group exercise programs, some types of psychological therapy, or acupuncture.

It also recommends that some antidepressants can be considered for people with chronic primary pain.

But it said that paracetamol, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin and ibuprofen, benzodiazepines or opioids should not be offered because there was little or no evidence that they made any difference to people’s quality of life, pain or psychological distress.

There was evidence that they can cause harm, including possible addiction, it added.

The draft guideline also said that antiepileptic drugs including gabapentinoids, local anaesthetics, ketamine, corticosteroids and antipsychotics should not be offered to people to manage chronic primary pain because, again, there was little or no evidence that these treatments work but could have possible harms.

Paul Chrisp, director of the centre for guidelines at Nice, said: “”When many treatments are ineffective or not well tolerated, it is important to get an understanding of how pain is affecting a person’s life and those around them because knowing what is important to the person is the first step in developing an effective care plan.

“Importantly the draft guideline also acknowledges the need for further research across the range of possible treatment options, reflecting both the lack of evidence in this area and the need to provide further choice for people with the condition.”

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