AI Startup Lunit Secures Investment from Guardant Health in a Strategic Funding Round

Lunit, a leading AI startup in AI-powered cancer solutions, today announced a strategic investment of $26 million from Guardant Health, Inc., a leading precision oncology company.

The deal, which includes the investment made by Guardant Health and also a groundbreaking collaboration between a liquid biopsy company and a medical AI startup, is intended to help reshape and innovate the precision oncology landscape.

Lunit has closed its Series C Tranche B funding round with the investment from Guardant Health. Lunit is expected to file for an initial public offering on the Korean Stock Exchange later this year.

At the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2021 annual meeting, Lunit presented that its tissue analysis platform, Lunit SCOPE, was able to find 50% more patients who would respond to immunotherapy, compared to traditional diagnostic pathology.1 Lunit has been presenting its findings at ASCO and American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) since 2019.

"Artificial intelligence is rapidly gaining ground in cancer research and it's exciting to see the excellent progress Lunit has made in developing innovative AI-powered radiology and pathology solutions that have the potential to significantly improve the diagnoses and treatment of cancer," said Helmy Eltoukhy, Guardant Health CEO. "We're very impressed with Lunit's approach and believe this investment will help them advance their important AI work for eventual clinical use. Through this investment, we also expect to utilize their AI platform to usher in new precision oncology products that contribute in a meaningful way to improving cancer care for patients."

"We believe that AI in the field of medicine is an inevitable future to come," said Brandon Suh, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Lunit. "As one of the early starters and front-runners in this new and innovative field, we have been validating the effectiveness of Lunit SCOPE through various studies, and now we are pushing to show its value in clinical research and real practice. We are more than delighted to announce the investment and collaboration with Guardant Health. With our AI technology in tissue phenomics and Guardant Health's commitment to advancing our work, we are looking forward to making impactful changes in cancer diagnosis and treatment." 

About Lunit

Through AI, Lunit aims to make data-driven medicine the new standard of care. Lunit is an AI software company devoted to developing AI solutions for precision diagnostics and therapeutics, to find the right diagnosis at the right cost, and the right treatment for the right patients. We are especially focused on conquering cancer, one of the leading causes of death worldwide.

Founded in 2013, Lunit has been internationally acknowledged for its advanced, state-of-the-art technology and its application in medical images. Our technology has been recognized at international AI competitions surpassing top companies like Google, IBM, and Microsoft. As a medical AI company that values building clinical evidence, our findings are presented in major peer-reviewed journals and global conferences including ASCO and AACR. Lunit is headquartered in Seoul, South Korea with offices and representatives in the U.S.A., Netherlands, and China.

Reference

1. Hyojin Kim, Chan-Young Ock, et al. Clinical performance of artificial intelligence-powered annotation of tumor cell PD-L1 expression for treatment of immune-checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) in advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), ASCO 2021