Cambridge, Mass. — Arboretum LifeSciences has launched with $30 million in Series A financing to expand the use of genetic testing and precision medicine for common diseases, while building genomically defined patient populations for clinical research and drug development.
The Cambridge-based company said it is working with healthcare providers including Advocate Health, Geisinger, Providence Healthcare and Cardiovascular Associates of America. Its Series A financing was led by F-Prime, GV, .406 Ventures, Hims & Hers, Amgen and other healthcare investors.
Arboretum was founded by leaders from the Broad Institute’s Data Sciences Platform and is developing an approach that combines artificial intelligence, genetic testing and clinical data.
“We started Arboretum to solve one of the biggest problems in therapeutics development: identifying genetically-defined populations that will have outsized benefit from common disease therapies,” said Anthony Philippakis, MD, PhD, Co-Founder and CEO of Arboretum and General Partner at GV.
Philippakis said the company is seeking to bring approaches used in oncology to common diseases such as coronary artery disease, diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders.
Arboretum plans to partner with healthcare systems to provide clinical genetic testing and build research networks that can identify patients at risk for preventable diseases and return actionable genomic findings.
The company said the resulting genomic and longitudinal clinical datasets can also support drug developers through target discovery, patient stratification, clinical trial matching and new commercialization models.
“Our focus is on building a durable and actionable research network that places patients at the center,” said Clare Bernard, PhD, President of Arboretum. “By engaging patients in research, and designing clinical trials around the biological signal of each patient rather than population averages, we give patients better therapeutic options and create the clinical evidence needed for tomorrow’s diagnostics and therapeutics.”
Arboretum said its partnerships with healthcare systems will be tailored to each organization.
At Advocate Health, the company will support the health system’s cardiogenetics program through genetic testing and a teleconsult model while supporting the Advocate CV Genetics Registry.
At Geisinger, Arboretum will provide clinical genetic testing for the MyCode-Connect program and integrate clinical-grade genomic findings into its biobank to support precision care, research and clinical trials.
The Providence partnership will provide genetic testing and research infrastructure tied to existing research registries, while Cardiovascular Associates of America will introduce point-of-care genetic testing across its specialty practice network.
“Precision medicine has enormous potential for patients with common diseases, but healthcare systems need scalable ways to integrate genetic testing into routine care,” said Terry Gilliland, President and CEO of Geisinger.
Arboretum said its broader goal is to create large cohorts of genetically profiled patients who have consented to participate in research and can be recontacted for future studies.
“Drug developers in common diseases have historically had limited access to the large-scale genomic and clinical datasets critical to helping understand differences in disease biology and translate genetic insights into potential new treatment options,” said Michael Montalto, PhD, Vice President of Precision Medicine at Amgen.
The company’s founding team brings experience in genomics, AI, clinical data infrastructure, registry development and human-subjects research.
