MSInsight, an innovative start-up specializing in precision medicine in oncology, announces the successful completion of its €1.6 million seed funding round. This fundraising was carried out with Calyseed, accompanied by Plateau de Saclay Business Angels, Yes Invest, Capital Cell, and banking partners such as bpifrance. The company’s mission is to transform cancer patient care through state-of-the-art diagnostic solutions based on DNA sequencing data. The tests developed by MSInsight will make it possible to direct patients to the most appropriate therapy in the short term.
A diagnostic challenge in the realm of precision medicine
Cancer care is undergoing a profound transformation. Precision medicine has enabled significant advances in personalizing treatment for each tumor based on the molecular characteristics of the patient’s DNA.
MSInsight aims to solve healthcare professionals’ daily challenge of decoding a complex genomic biomarker, representing a family of common cancers called Microsatellite Instability (MSI) Cancers. To address this challenge, MSInsight is proposing MSIcare. This software solution optimizes the assessment of this key biomarker. Using advanced bioinformatics and artificial intelligence algorithms, MSIcare improves this diagnosis with unparalleled accuracy and guides clinicians in their treatment decision-making.
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This €1.6 Million financing will allow MSInsight to finalize MSIcare’s technological development, demonstrate its performance in various types of cancer, and initiate the regulatory clinical validation necessary for its CE-IVD marking as an in vitro diagnostic medical device.
An ambitious mission to improve the detection of MSI cancers
MSI cancers account for nearly one million new cases per year worldwide1 and can affect a wide variety of organs, with a predominance in digestive and gynecological cancers. As a tumor-agnostic biomarker, MSI is relevant to a vast majority of cancer patients, with up to 13 million individuals worldwide potentially eligible for this diagnostic approach each year.
Today, this diagnosis is routinely recommended for any newly identified tumor, regardless of the tumor’s organ of origin. Detecting this marker in cancer represents a significant criterion for therapeutic pathways since these tumors can now be treated with immunotherapy, resulting in revolutionary survival results. Immunotherapy can treat previously condemned MSI cancer patients with a very advanced metastatic tumor3 or even avoid surgery in some patients with major benefits4.
In clinical practice, this widespread adoption requires appropriate methodologies to perform large-scale, high-accuracy diagnosis. However, current diagnostic tools do not meet current needs and are often imprecise2. This leads to prescribing inappropriate treatments, a loss of opportunity for patients, and unnecessary healthcare costs.
MSInsight aims to fill this gap by harnessing the potential of next-generation sequencing (NGS), a high-throughput DNA analysis technology already used in clinical routines. NGS has proven to be remarkably effective in evaluating MSI. However, the interpretation of the complex genomic data generated is based on sophisticated algorithms, and those currently available lead to diagnostic errors in up to 30% of cases2, with dramatic consequences for patients.
MSIcare, a new diagnostic standard for patients
MSInsight aims to become the leader in MSI diagnostics, covering the entire patient journey, from early detection to prediction of treatment response.
To do this, the company has developed MSIcare, a medical device software integrating bioinformatics algorithms and artificial intelligence models derived from its expertise to interpret the patient’s genomic data and identify information of interest. The solution proposed by MSInsight makes it possible to significantly improve the detection of the MSI biomarker in different contexts and to democratize its access thanks to an optimized interpretation interface of the results. It has already been clinically validated that this diagnosis can be made from a tumor tissue sample in different cancers. MSInsight is actively working to expand its application to simple blood diagnostics, paving the way for a less invasive and more accessible approach.
Furthermore, MSInsight is also positioning itself to facilitate the identification of individuals at risk of developing MSI-related cancers, such as those with Lynch syndrome, one of the most common genetic predispositions to cancer in humans. Early detection of MSI enables the implementation of appropriate surveillance measures to prevent or detect cancer at an early stage. Globally, 200 million people are under medical surveillance. An application in pediatric oncology, developed in collaboration with its partners, has already demonstrated clinical efficacy and is on the verge of being tested in routine practice.
Innovations from French academic research
Founded in 2022, the company leverages the research work of the “Microsatellite Instability and Cancer” team at the Saint-Antoine Research Center (Inserm, Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Paris, Sorbonne University) in Paris, led by Prof. Alex Duval, the current scientific director of MSInsight. This laboratory is a pioneer and is recognized worldwide for its work in MSI cancer diagnosis and, more generally, in precision medicine for these cancers.
MSInsight is actively collaborating with this research team to continue developing innovations that will be a real game-changer for patients and their families and simplify clinical practice.
Since its creation, the company has been distinguished several times, particularly as the winner of the 25th i-Lab innovation competition in 2023, which rewards the best startups in France. The accelerator WILCO also supports the company financially through an honorary loan.
The start-up has already installed its first prototypes and is collaborating with medical laboratories in major university hospitals in France and abroad to experiment with its innovations.
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“This fundraising marks a key milestone for MSInsight. It gives us the means to accelerate the deployment of our technology and strengthen our clinical partnerships. We have already proven that our approach outperforms current methods in several types of cancer. Thanks to this funding, we are preparing the CE-IVD certification procedures for MSIcare. The company’s ambition is to position its MSIcare solution as the future gold standard for assessing microsatellite instability and the first regulatory-validated bioinformatics solution,” said Arnaud Cutivet, PhD, president and co-founder of MSInsight.
“MSIcare has the potential to become a standard in oncology diagnostics, significantly improving the therapeutic orientation and care pathway. We strongly believe in this solution, which is part of an evolving trend of using NGS sequencing tests to diagnose and use MSI biomarkers in oncology. The bioinformatics software developed can be easily integrated into laboratory practices. MSInsight’s innovation has already demonstrated its performance and reliability in retrospective studies. The start-up benefits from intellectual rights, an expert team, and a network of quality partners that should make it possible to reach the key milestones for the next round of funding,” says Elodie Panier, Managing Director of Calyseed.
“MSInsight embodies the future of personalized medicine, providing algorithms for accurate analysis of genomic data that give more hope to patients with certain types of cancer. Their innovation paves the way for more targeted and effective treatments, making every analysis an opportunity to save lives. We at PSBA are extremely pleased to be part of this innovative journey, which aligns with our mission to support purposeful innovation, which promises to revolutionize the cancer care landscape,” says Antoine Risk of PSBA.
“Capital Cell is thrilled to have directed significant funding from more than 170 investors to MSInsight, a company that demonstrates immense potential in the field of cancer care,” says Daniel Oliver, Director of Capital Cell.
With this financing round, MSInsight confirms its commitment to providing healthcare professionals with robust tools to avoid misdiagnosis, predict therapeutic responses, and make their medical decision-making more reliable for patients.
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Source – globenewswire
