DELFI diagnostics announces equity investment from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund

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DELFI Diagnostics, Inc., a US-based developer of accessible blood-based tests that deliver a new way to enhance cancer detection, today announced an equity investment by the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund (GHIF), the corporate venture capital arm of Merck & Co., Inc, known as MSD outside the United States and Canada.

The capital will accelerate and expand DELFI's development and commercialisation of its cancer detection solutions. DELFI's fragmentomics technology applies artificial intelligence (AI) to whole-genome sequencing data to compare an individual's cell-free DNA (cfDNA) patterns and characteristics against populations with and without cancer.

The investment is expected to yield a range of innovative approaches to address the gaps in detection and monitoring treatment efficacy for millions of patients facing cancer now and, in the years, ahead. 

DELFI has commercialised the FirstLook Lung test, which evaluates patterns of DNA fragments in the blood that reveal the presence of lung cancer. In an independent validation, FirstLook Lung was shown to have 80% sensitivity in a screening population, including reliable detection of the earliest stages of the disease. The test also demonstrated a negative predictive value (NPV) of 99.8% – a measure of how unlikely low-dose CT scans will detect lung cancer if the FirstLook Lung test returns a 'Not Elevated' result.